Beowulf vs. MOSIX

[Mark Lucas]

Peter,

That is our opinion at AGIS/ImageLinks.  We process satellite and aerial
imagery which stresses CPU, bandwidth and storage.  We have just concluded
porting all of our code to run on LInux and are in the process of removing
all of the SGIs and Suns replacing them with dual CPU Pentium boxes.  More
horsepower and substantially lower cost.  We have been looking at MPI and
PVM in our code thinking of BeoWulf clusters, but after attending LinuxExpo
we have decided that Mosix is a better fit - especially given our workflow.
We were impressed by how quickly the clusters at the show installed it and
tried it out.  Wiring PVM and MPI into the code is definitely desired so
that there is more to spread around.

Mark

>It seems to me that for business applications, MOSIX might be a better way
>to go as a quick and easy way to take advantage of clusters.  With its load
>balancing and transparent process migration, even existing serial
>applications should be able to take advantage of the power of clusters.
>With Beowulf, on the other hand, one must parallelize the code in order to
>see any improvement in performance.
>
>Is this assessment accurate?  Any comments?
>
>---
>Peter Szwedyk
>Goldman, Sachs & Co.
>Securities Lending Technology
>One New York Plaza, 48th Floor
>New York, NY  10004
>Phone: 212-357-8105 | Fax: 212-428-1405

******************
Mark R. Lucas
Chief Technical Officer

AGIS/ ImageLinks, Inc.
4450 West Eau Gallie Blvd.
Suite 164, Perimeter Center
Melbourne, Florida 32934

(407) 253-0011 (work)
(407) 253-5559 (fax)
(407) 725-6842 (home)
(407) 693-6842 (cellular)

email:   mlucas@imagelinks.com
http://www.imagelinks.com
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