Clustering

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
How would I cluster a series of mac's together. Would be 2 Dual 200Mhz 9600's, and a 8600 300Mhz?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    What exactly are you expecting out of the "cluster"? I ask because many people have very different expectation about what this means.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    I hope to be able to use the processing power from these computers for video renderings.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    If your software supports clustering, then you can cluster. What software are you using? Most likely it's a simple LAN cluster.
  • Reply 4 of 14
  • Reply 5 of 14
    Thanks much uburb, I'll have to check and see if that works.
  • Reply 6 of 14
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Altivec_2.0

    Thanks much uburb, I'll have to check and see if that works.



    It's not going to. You need to use rendering software like shake's qmaster that does clustering.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    I'm not going to run shake, Altivec Fractal first. and then probably photoshop. I can probably set the cluster up as 1 workgroup server.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    just saw on the pooch site, it's about $150 per computer for the software. That might be too much, I'm currently purchasing more powermacs, and budgets tight hm...
  • Reply 9 of 14
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    I think you are misunderstanding me. Applications need to be written to take advantage of parallel computing. Photoshop is not. Really, pooch is primarily for specially written scientific applications.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    I can currently use photoshop to render a high MB file using the 2 Dual 9600's. Just finished actually. I think photoshop can be used over multiple systems.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Altivec_2.0

    I can currently use photoshop to render a high MB file using the 2 Dual 9600's. Just finished actually. I think photoshop can be used over multiple systems



    Yeah. Sure.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    Alitvec, there is no solution for what you are looking for, and even if there were, the computers you site would not be worth having in the cluster. The overhead for managing a cluster would be far more than they would contribute.



    And as other have said, the software has to be written to take advantage of a cluster. Altivec Fractal appears to have been written with this in mind, and so will benefit. Photoshop definitely has not, and will not be for the foreseeable future. With the sort of processing that Photoshop does (shallow and wide... that is not much processing on a lot of data points) the data links would have to be incredible to see any benefit from multiple computers, and the cost of those links would be crippling.



    Right now the number of commercial Apps that benefit from any sort of clustering can be counted on one hand (ok.. an exaggeration... but not a big one). Here is a quick list from the top of my head: Xcode, Shake, Rayman, Altivec Fractal, Maya, WebObjects (I am stretching here), and then you start to get into the SETI-at-home and all of the research applications (custom built mostly from tool such as Condor or pooch).



    And then to paraphrase:

    "I will review.. no... is'a to much, I will sum up:"

    "Clustering" "You keep'a using that'a word, I don'a think it'a means what you think'a it means"
  • Reply 13 of 14
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Karl Kuehn

    --snip--

    ...and then you start to get into the SETI-at-home and all of the research applications (custom built mostly from tool such as Condor or pooch).

    --snip--





    Umm... no, , SETI-at-home is not written for clustering, in-fact the only current release is written for single processor systems so you have to start multiple (2) SETI-at-home clients just to use a dual system to its full.



  • Reply 14 of 14
    Quote:

    Umm... no, SETI-at-home is not written for clustering, in-fact the only current release is written for single processor systems so you have to start multiple (2) SETI-at-home clients just to use a dual system to its full.



    Actually, SETI-at-home is a form of clustering. Just one that is exceedingly distributed, and exceedingly high latency. Usually this is called distributed computing, but it is a form of clustering.
Sign In or Register to comment.