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Where to Spend $1M on a Cluster?
Natchswing asks: "My university has been given a $757,825 NSF grant to build, 'A 256 node (128 pair) Beowulf parallel computing cluster ... to improve the realism of gravity-wave modeling by permitting treatment of the three dimensional problem and multiple wave interactions.' They want to pay a company to just show up and drop off a functional cluster rather than build it themselves. Since word has leaked out regarding the purchase intent, every computer manufacturer under the sun (including Apollo himself) has called up trying to sell their cluster. Since I'm no cluster expert, I'm writing Slashdot. If you had $0.7 mil to buy a pre-built cluster who would you go with and why?"
A cluster of storage? Perhaps you mean the Xserve itself.
They even have a page on clusters.
I run a 48 Node Microway beowulf and I must say that it is the most stable system available. Everything came assembled and ready to go (of course, I built the enclosure and did the networking, but they will do that for you if you'd like). If you're not very knowledgeable about beowulfs, how do you know you'll need so much power? Do you know how well the software you will be using will scale? Is it close to embarassingly parallel or does it lose efficiency over X nuber of nodes? What type of resources and consumption does the program use? Is it extremely processor hungry, or does it deal with dense matrices and require low-memory latency and high bandwidth or both? Do you know if you will need the power of Myranet or will you be able to get by on GigE?
These are important questions you must ask your researchers and yourself before you purchase this cluster. But, to answer your question, I believe Microway is the best choice and I plan on having them build our next cluster in the next fiscal year.
-brian