Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Buying from the lowest tender is rarely a good idea.
Yeah, so if you know how to write a contract, the lowest bidder is always the best choice. Think of terms like this: contract price is $700,000 if the following conditions are meet: (a,b,c) by date x and $600,000 if meet by date y. System must be free of manufacturer defects until date z. Manufacturer defects are defined with high specificity here...
But in any case, if you tell the companys what to bid to, they will all bid to that. Then you can pick the company that you think is going to give you the best product and the least hastle. None the less, terms should be specific about date of delivery (a good company won't really care about this so it doesn't affect their bid).
If you haven't already, google for beowulf clusters at other universities and contact those departments.
..Dell
...IBM
and *talk* to a sales rep. I know how hard this is (not!) but asking Slashdot is kinda silly. Sure you might want some impartial advice but
ciao