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Macintosh Clustering
HiredMan writes: "Wired is running an article comparing the set-up and admin of Linux Beowulf clusters versus Mac based clusters. Slant of the article is that the Macs are easier to set-up, maintain and are more flexible. They note that the Linux "how to" manual is 230 pages while the corresponding Apple document is a 1 page PDF file. Dauger Research of former Appleseed fame is mentioned as well, of course. MacSlash is also covering the article. Let the on-topic (for once) Beowulf comments fly..."
First things first: I'm a big Mac fan -- when it comes to using Macs as client machines.
But I really do have to agree here. Short documentation doesn't necessarily mean a simpler product -- it could just mean bad documentation. In the case of Apple, unfortunately, that's very likely to be true; I've always found that their products come with unbearably flimsy documentation addressed to the most newbie user. Of course, this works most of the time, since their market is largely made-up of newbie users, and since many of their products are, in fact, much easier to use than their Windows/Linux counterpart. But when you're doing something like clustering, well, you know, I'd rather have a big manual, thanks.
Do domain names matter?
but can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters? That would be sweet. Or something.
Apple is simply not prepared to provide the customisation needed for anything more than desktops and simple servers. For that matter, I can't even customise things enough to suit my geeky requirements. Either Apple needs to start selling components seperately or give up on markets like clustering.
I just finished tearing down and re-building a twenty node linux cluster in less than half-a-day.
Also I set it up the first time by myself as my first experience. I did everything from builidnthe nodes to installing linux ans clustering software and that only took two days.
I almost laugh at the thought of a mac running parrallel. The whole point of cluster computing is to provide a cheap means of high performance computing. Hey not that macs wouldn't be great, but common man they are expensive. All you need fo r a cluster to work is descent RAM, motherboard, and harddrive, and a cheap (In my case $5) video card.
If I had better cooling in the room I probalby would have went with AMD as they have much better floating point performance than Intel.
I guess that If I just had the money to spend on a super-cluster I would go with twenty Octane 2 dual processors. At about 12000 apeice that is pretty damn expensive. Oh yeah my cluster top to bottom was under twenty thousand (includeing cisco router), and I had to re-buy RAM 'caues I cut corners there the first time.
what?
Sigh. This is why WinTel continues to dominate.
Dumb businesses look at the quick and short-time costs, relegating longer-term costs to secondary status. Most semi-smart people know that longer-term (and usually recurring) costs tend to dominate over the long term. Even though there are many studies showing Macs having higher ROI, WinTel gets the vote. Just look at arguments here on Slashdot- "I can get (whatever) much more for the price Apple charges!" But it is proven that Macs need less maintainence and less configuration stuff.
With Linux, it's less clear because you can run it on even cheaper hardware, and the OS and most apps are also free. But it takes more human time to get it working right, for the most part, depending on what you want to do. Standard install, no prob. Something special, now you start running into human costs, which are way higher than equipment costs. Put it this way, it would be cheaper for a company to buy a brand new computer than to hire me for 1 day to fix it (minus data loss of course; but they should've backed up anyway!)
Meh.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
That's the x86 is more of a standard. Let's say that node 15 of my massive cluster bursts into flames for no apparent reason. I can replace it with any old 'off-the-shelf' computer, and, at the very least, the 'architecture' is the same. With the exception of various slot/socket layouts, the PC is more 'interchangable'. If my Athlon overheats, I can run into practically any computer store, buy the same chip, and pop it in, where the old one was. If my iMac processor bursts into flames, I'd most likely have to take it to a special Mac place.
Another 'disadvantage' of the PowerPC platform (and this one won't really affect me, or many Slashdotters for that matter) is that you can't run Windows on a the PPC (Mac) platform. My choice for a clustered operating system would most definitely be UNIX-based, but surely some would like to run Windows on their cluster. With x86, that's possible.
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suwain_2