Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Flattening Out The Linux Cluster Learning Curve

Posted by michael on from the stomp-stomp dept.

editingwhiz writes "IT Manager's Journal has a good look at a forthcoming book, The Linux Enterprise Cluster, that explains in clear, concise language how to build a Linux enterprise cluster using open source tools. Writer Elizabeth Ferranini interviews author Karl Kopper in a Q&A. Is this more complicated than it appears to be? (IT Manager's Journal is part of OSTG.)"

4 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. OSTG? by ricotest · · Score: 4, Informative

    I must have missed this, and for anyone else who didn't know, OSTG is the new name for the Open Source Development Network (OSDN) Slashdot is a part of. They're now called the Open Source Technology Group.

  2. Very nice by a_hofmann · · Score: 4, Informative

    Installing and administering the various open source tools can be tedious work, especially without documentation of how to put things together.

    A quick Google search though reveals a lot of free papers and manuals on this very topic.

  3. Mandrake CLIC by bolind · · Score: 4, Informative

    I will start by admitting that I am just a dumb university student talking out my ass. I have never set up an enterprise scale cluster.

    However, last january we set up a small (six node) cluster with the help of CLIC. Once we realized the link between a Mandrake and consective dead CD drives, we installed the cluster in little time.

    CLIC might focus a little too much on userfriendlyness and a little too little on flexibility, but for our purposes it was great. It sports ganglia, gexec, distcc and MPI (and probably more), and administration and deployment of nodes is a breeze.

    I heartily recommend CLIC for student/test/proof-of-concept projects.

  4. Please stop misusing the term 'learning curve' by double_h · · Score: 4, Informative

    A flat learning curve is a bad thing.

    The term "learning curve" was invented by the aerospace industry in the 1930s as a way to quantify improved efficiency from mass production (basically, the more you do a task, the easier it becomes). The term was later adopted by psychology and the social sciences, where most people first encounter it.

    In both cases, the horizontal axis of a learning curve represents time or effort, and the vertical axis represents amount learned or productivity. Therefore something that is intuitively obvious in fact has a steep learning curve.

    "Learning curve" was a technical term with a specific definition for decades before it was ever a (misused) marketing buzzword.

    Thank you for your time :)