Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Where to Spend $1M on a Cluster?

Posted by Cliff on from the shopping-for-beowulfs dept.

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?"

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Competitive Bidding by duffbeer703 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Have the companies submit bids... then compare them and make a decision.

    This isn't rocket science.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  2. RFP is the answer by hectorh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think that you should look at your intended application.

    - How much disk space are you going to need in total?
    - How much disk space are you going to need per node?
    - How much RAM is each node going to need?
    - Is your application going to benefit from a low-latency or a high-bandwith connection between nodes?
    - What about cpu? which cpu family will provide the best bang/$ for your calculations? PPC or X86? x86-64 maybe?

    Once you know what you need, put it together in an RFP and send it out to every company that shows up under a google search for "beowulf cluster"

    Review the responses and pick the best.

    Since you are asking this question here, I'm going to refrain from suggesting the better option which is to build your own.

    Hector

  3. Negotiate a success story by elliotj · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Whoever you chose to go with (I'm partial to Apple, but that's just me - and just because they have sexy hardware), see if you can get them to give you either more for your money, or free implementation/consulting help, or something like that in exchange for using your implementation as a success story. I think Virginia Tech got a bunch of free stuff from Apple when they decided to build their supercomputer.

    All these vendors want to be able to talk about their work. Letting them use you for marketing may help you get more for your money.