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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Toon wrote: “</span>Any idea why it gives better
performance? Was it on memory bw intensive apps? Could it be due to changes in
the kernel that take into account the Numa architecture (affinity)”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>This is very likely it. Dredging thru old e-mails, I see
that, in Jan-09, the application of a then-current 2.6.28 kernel to a RHEL 5.2
system provided about a 2x improvement in 8-thread OpenMP STREAM
performance. Subsequently, moving to RHEL 5.3 and its default kernel provided
the same good STREAM performance. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>-Tom<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> Toon Knapen
[mailto:toon.knapen@gmail.com] <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:53 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Tom Elken<br>
<b>Cc:</b> gerry.creager@tamu.edu; landman@scalableinformatics.com; beowulf<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Beowulf] Forwarded from a long time reader having trouble
posting<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Any idea why it gives better
performance? Was it on memory bw intensive apps? Could it be due to changes in
the kernel that take into account the Numa architecture (affinity) or ... <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal>On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:57 PM, Tom Elken <<a
href="mailto:tom.elken@qlogic.com">tom.elken@qlogic.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>> On Behalf Of Gerald Creager<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>> I've been quite happy with
CentOS 5.3 and we're experimenting with<br>
> CentOS 5.4 now. I see good stability in 5.[34]<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal>I have to second the recommendation of 5.3 or 5.4.<br>
<br>
Some time ago, we saw significant performance improvements on Nehalem (Xeon
X5570) in moving from RHEL 5.2 to 5.3. So I expect that moving from 5.1
to 5.[34] would also be a significant improvement in performance.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<span style='color:#888888'>-Tom</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><br>
> and the incorporation<br>
> of<br>
> a couple of tools worth having in a distribution for 'Wulf use. I'd<br>
> not<br>
> recommend sticking with the old version, but of course, once you're<br>
> established, not carelessly upgrading, either.<br>
><br>
> gerry<br>
><br>
> Joe Landman wrote:<br>
> > My apologies if this is bad form, I know Toon from his past<br>
> > participation on this list, and he asked me to forward.<br>
> ><br>
> > -------- Original Message --------<br>
> ><br>
> > Dear all,<br>
> ><br>
> > I've been working on hpux-itanium for the last 2 years (and even<br>
> > unsubscribed to beowulf-ml during most of that time, my bad) but soon<br>
> > will turn back to a beowulf cluster (HP DL380G6's with Xeon X5570,<br>
> > amcc/3ware 9690SA-8i with 4 x 600GB Cheetah 15krpm). Now I have a few<br>
> > questions on the config.<br>
> ><br>
> > 1) our company is standardised on RHEL 5.1. Would sticking with rhel<br>
> 5.1<br>
> > instead of going to the latest make a difference.<br>
> > 2) What are the advantages of the hpc version of rhel. I browsed the<br>
> doc<br>
> > but unless having to compile mpi myself I do not see a difference or<br>
> did<br>
> > I miss soth.<br>
> > 3) which filesystem is advisable knowing that we're calculating on<br>
> large<br>
> > berkeley db databases<br>
> ><br>
> > thanks in advance,<br>
> ><br>
> > toon<br>
> ><br>
> > Toon Knapen <a href="mailto:toon.knapen@gmail.com">toon.knapen@gmail.com</a><br>
> ><br>
> > -----------------------------------<br>
> ><br>
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