Rocks Cluster discussion

I have been contemplating turning my 4 oldest computers into a Rocks Cluster, basically just as an academic exercise to see if I could do it and get the experience. I ordered the DVD with all the so-called Rolls. I am ready to go.

I'm thinking this would be good for folding. I'm thinking (and that my be my whole problem!) that the cluster, with its 1 frontend and 3 clients would act as one 'supercomputer'. I could load the folding app on the frontend and it wouldn't care about the setup of the machine it was on, it would just think it was on one machine with with a lot of processing power. So, I go over to the folding forums and I'm told it won't work and it was suggested that I run 4 separate instances of the folding app, one on each of the computers.

Uh... then why am I building a cluster?

Apparently I don't understand the uses for a cluster or how it works exactly. So, any enlightenment about what I can do with the cluster after I build it will help me decide to go for it or not.



(Also,, I wasn't sure which forum would be a best fit for this, so I threw it in the Networking forum.)

There is more than one arrangment for this....take a look here to get started.
I think this is the direction you want.(scroll down for Linux-related)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(computing)

Addendum: The Folding application possibly only sets your machine up as a client node and allows the server to connect.(I don't use it...I'm assuming)

Then there is this:
http://www.infogroup.it/sistemisti/clusterix/

I've thought about using Beowulf before to cluster several machines together for various things, but it turns out that the Linux open-source clustering software is now obsolete and not being developed due to the advent of multi-core processors (that's what they say!). The only solution left is proprietary and, frankly, not a huge amount of use without a VERY high-speed network (you won't see much gain because of the vast improvements in modern processor design).

I don't want to put you off, but it's a lot of effort for very little if you already have modern hardware.

James

Well, as I said, I have 4 old computers that I was going to use. Three Pentium 4's and a Pentium 3. It's basically an academic exercise. But, then, once I have it built, what am I gonna do with it? What can I do with it?

Keeping in mind I won't be doing this: "The Borg, a 52-node Beowulf cluster used by the McGill University pulsar group to search for pulsations from binary pulsars." ;)

So... not very many clusterers here, eh?

I think I'll just build it and see what happens.

I've built a couple of clusters with ROCKS. One that has 156 cores and one test bed with 20 cores.

The reason why f@h doesn't work very well on the ROCKS roll is because of how the f@h client is built. F@H does some cloud computing algorithms that basically turn each box running the client into a worker node. When you finish your work order, you sent the results back to the server farm that stores the information (head node for the cloud).

When you set up a cluster, it's the same principle -- just smaller scale. Now you can poke around in the scheduling program in the ROCKS roll (either condor or fork -- fork would work better for you since it's a one user cluster) you can have it take each WO that you get from Standford and split it up again (might have to ask the boys over there for some help) so that each worker node gets a piece of the pie, then you would be able to efficiently use a cluster for folding.

**I'm writing this while working on some DNS issues with our cluster...so I'll clean it up and fix any errors when I get done**


James

One of my friends set up a Rocks cluster 4 or 5 years ago at school, but I think about all he ever ran on it was the linpack benchmark, so I'm not sure how useful it was. He had talked with the physics department about writing some software for it, but I don't know if that ever happened.

Hi Guys, I know it is really old post, but as I am new in Rocks Clustering, I am looking for some help with reletevily simple things for you (I guess) but not for me as yet...
I have 2 nodes cluster: FE and Compute one. Rocks 6.1.
I am trying to figure out how Condor could be used in the following:

1) I build my company webserver on FE. I am looking how HTTPD instances make be spreaded on both nodes.
I am not sure how to mesure that Condor is actually configured (I did not do anything manually) just got installation of all rolls from DVD.

2) my cluster is in my home LAN, where I got other windows machines, printer, scanner, and few NAS. How to use those things in cluster? Printer, scanner? How to add NAS as part of Cluster HD?

Could someone please help me even with just pointing in right direction?

Thank you!

Hello ..I am new to rocks cluster installation.
I read the roll based user guide and Tried to install rocks cluster 6.1.1 on my front end.
I added extra network card for public network access and the hardware is working properly.
at the begining of the installation while rocks configure eth1..it warn me that "DBUS is not found.."
i just ignored the warning and keep doing my installation.
But, in the post installation phase an error occurs.


any help please?
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