Hi Vivek-
On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 09:36:17AM -0700, Vivek Ayer wrote:
> 1 OpenBSD Router running 4.5 routing to a subnet of 13 nodes running
> FreeBSD 7.2. Of the 13 nodes, 1 node is a master mysql server and the
> 12 nodes will run apache running LAMP-like services. The router will
> round-robin using hoststated for load-balancing.
There are some FreeBSD clusters out there (NCSA has one, IIRC), but
they're certainly not as common as Linux. If your users can run on
FreeBSD, you might as well use it. If their code is all Linuxy (and lots
of cluster and -- even more so -- grid code make silly assumptions like
that), you should give them a platform that they can easily use.
> However, they will serve an additional task: The master mysql server
> will be head node for MPI jobs delivered to the 12 nodes. Basically,
> this setup will double up as a beowulf and web server. Is this
> efficient? I imagine the MPI jobs won't be running all the time and
> while they're up, might as well do something.
This might work. But you're setting yourself up for contention and
degraded service to at least one set of users. Do the people who care
about perfomance of your LAMP stack mind waiting a bit while MPI jobs
chew memory and network bandwidth? Do your MPI users mind if their jobs
take longer to complete while your LAMP stuff is getting pounded?
With regard to MPI, what sort of interconnects will your execute nodes
have? MPI wants lots of bandwidth between nodes and regular gigabit
might not cut it (depending on your users' applications).
--
o--------------------------{ Will Maier }--------------------------o
| web:.......http://www.lfod.us/ | email.........willma...@ml1.net |
*---------------------[ BSD: Live Free or Die ]--------------------*
