[Beowulf] Re: switching capacity terminology confusion

[Rahul Nabar]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Gerry Creager <gerry.creager at tamu.edu> wrote:
> silicon, if I recall correctly.  I've several S50s in my data center, hammer
> the fool out of them, and am happy.

Thanks Gerry! I have been getting many great reviews on Force10. Maybe
I will seriously consider them.

>Prior to them, we used Foundry
> EdgeIron1G switches for our gigabit-connected clusters.  They worked well.
>  For our newer gigabit-connected cluster we went with the HP 5412zl, and
> have been happy.
>
> I'd not recommend cheap switches: They can bite you if you go too cheap and
> result in poor MPI and I/O performance.

On the other end of the spectrum is Cisco. Their gear seems at such a
huge $$ premium with respect to the other vendors and when I ask why
the best answer I get is "Cisco is the market leader in switches".
They won't show me which of their parameters make a Cisco switch
better than the rest.

-- 
Rahul