[Beowulf] Cluster install and admin approach (newbie question)

[madskaddie at gmail.com]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Hearns, John<john.hearns at mclaren.com> wrote:
> Greetings,
>
>
> I relatively new to cluster environments and I was given a small
> (7nodes+1head) cluster to admin. So far I only had to maintain what
> was already installed so few problems to solve (and to think on). But
> new (diferent: amd opteron vs intel xeon) machines came and I have to
> expand the cluster (think and solve problems).
>
> And whose bright idea was this one?
> I bet it wasn't yours.
> I've seen this before - 'computers' are just assumed to be 'all the
> same' by the management -
> and the poor techie is the one who has to cope with new hardware for
> which drivers don't exist
> in the original Linux install, new kernel version are needed, cluster
> management and monitoring
> won't cope with these ndoes.
> I have some real sympathy for you.
>
>

That issue I see it by another point of view: finally I will learn
something really new. Yes, I will loose time  but I hope that in the
end all players will win: me because I got money and know how and the
cluster users because we doubled the capacity (not really because I
don't believe that mixing the nodes will possible) so more people can
run code.

But the question remains unanswered ;) and is not tied to the
"heterogeneous cluster" problem:  If diskless what about "/var" like
issues; if not, what do you use to install and manage it


Gil Brandao