Cluster Computing

Morrison S.R.

Table of contents :
Synopsis & Acknolegdements……Page 3
Executive Summary……Page 5
Contents……Page 6
Table of Figures……Page 8
Definitions and Acronyms……Page 9
Conventions used within this document……Page 11
Parallel Processing……Page 12
Motivation……Page 13
Applications of Parallel Processing……Page 14
Computer Classification Schemes……Page 17
Cluster Computing Classification Schemes……Page 21
History……Page 22
Overview……Page 23
Classification……Page 24
NOW/COW……Page 25
Distributed vs. Centralized Systems……Page 26
System Design……Page 28
The Need for Performance Evaluation……Page 29
Performance Indices of Parallel Computation……Page 30
Theoretical Performance of Parallel Computers……Page 31
Practical Performance of Parallel Computers……Page 36
Symmetric Multiprocessing……Page 38
Basic Network Architectures……Page 40
Network Channel Bonding……Page 42
Node Interconnection Technologies……Page 43
Towards Parallel Systems……Page 44
Redhat Linux 7.2……Page 46
Microsoft Windows 2000……Page 50
Other……Page 54
Middleware……Page 55
PVM Overview……Page 56
MPI Overview……Page 57
Application Development Packages……Page 59
ARCH……Page 61
Building a Beowulf……Page 63
Beowulf Performance Suite……Page 66
The Linpack Benchmark……Page 67
Mosixview……Page 68
Persistence of Vision……Page 69
Results Analysis……Page 73
Conclusion……Page 76
References……Page 78
Appendix……Page 85
Class 1 Network Hardware……Page 86
Class 2 Network Hardware……Page 90
Appendix B – Channel Bonding……Page 97
Appendix C – MPI Implementations……Page 103
LAM……Page 104
MPICH……Page 105
POV-Ray Benchmark……Page 106
Alternate Bench Mark POV Files……Page 108
POV-Ray Benchmark Performance data……Page 117
Lam MPI Cluster boot-up and tear-down……Page 118
POV-Ray……Page 119