Clustering

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jwink3101jwink3101
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
How do people cluster their macs? Is it software based, done in the bios or, is it completely hardware? I have found programs like Pooch that are software but I think it said it only works with certain programs. Is there a free way to cluster two or more computers? Could it be done with firewire for better performance?



I would like to play and cluster some computers at school (they will let me over the summer). Would they all have to be the exact same setup?



Any info is more than helpful. If you could give me some links, I would appreciate that too,



Like I said, I would like to know all the ways but certainly the cheaper the better.



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 12
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    It is all software (unless you want to get a fancy network like InfiniBand or Myrinet). Download Xgrid and try it out. Firewire is slower than Gigabit Ethernet, so skip it.



    What are you actually trying to accomplish? A cluster is for computation; it won't do you much good if you don't have anything to compute.
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  • Reply 2 of 12
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    How did the people at VA tech do it?



    Would it make running apps or games faster?
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  • Reply 3 of 12
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    I will rephrase. I know VA tech did infiniband but how does that work?



    Also, i do not have gigabit cards so i will be stuck with either firewire or 100 mbit
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  • Reply 4 of 12
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ (I am assuming you are using macs...)
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  • Reply 5 of 12
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Paul

    http://www.apple.com/acg/xgrid/ (I am assuming you are using macs...)



    Could i use somehting like Xgrid for Games and photoshop?
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  • Reply 6 of 12
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    Quote:

    Building on the enthusiastic response to the first preview, Xgrid Technology Preview 2 adds a command-line tool for submitting and monitoring jobs from the command line and support for the Message Passing Interface for tightly-coupled computations.



    so unless you know how to use either from the command line, it is highly unlikely...



    do a search for xgrid on the forums... when it first came out there were a few threads that were similar in scope to this and will provide some good information on the applications that can benefit from distributed computing...
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  • Reply 7 of 12
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    xgrid will soon become an integral part of all the pro apps and lightwave, and clustering will be as easy as redezvous.
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  • Reply 8 of 12
    jimzipjimzip Posts: 446member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    xgrid will soon become an integral part of all the pro apps and lightwave, and clustering will be as easy as redezvous.



    That's just what I wanted to hear. I was about to ask..



    Jimzip
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  • Reply 9 of 12
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jwink3101

    How did the people at VA tech do it?



    Would it make running apps or games faster?



    The VA tech people use management software they designed themselves I believe.



    It will make certain apps run faster but they need to be designed with clustering in mind and generally that means something computationally intensive. It's absolutely useless for games.
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  • Reply 10 of 12
    merovingianmerovingian Posts: 436member
    VA Tech made some modifications to low level underlying Mac OS X code for it to work properly, and the use of Infiniband made for good network communication, etc...



    Just remember, the Linpack benchmark, (the one used to rank it in the Top500 list), like any benchmark, is a meaningless indicator for performance.



    To cluster a bunch of Macs, all you need is to network a few Macs together, (Ethernet will do), download the aforementioned Xgrid utility, and you're well on your way! m.
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  • Reply 11 of 12
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
    Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.



    Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.



    Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
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  • Reply 12 of 12
    jwink3101jwink3101 Posts: 739member
    Thanks for all the help!



    I am glad that there is free software out there. I wish it worked in a way that it would just be more power and an extra CPU. I love my Powerbook but sometimes i miss some of the power i had on my old computer.
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