From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Thu Nov 26 1998 - 11:53:19 MST
Dan Clemmensen writes:
> Again, look at the usable bandwidth per node for the given solutions.
> It's below 100Kbps. Radio is wonderful, but I want 100Mbps per node,
> and I want a high node density.
A full-duplex FastEthernet link gives you roughly twice that/port.
Using multiple NICs/node gives you even more bandwidth, and one which
scales up linearly with node size (ditto disk bandwidth, if each
node is equipped with individual disk(s)). Multiple-port NICs, even
with switching functionality, are not unprecendented. In fact, I'll
build my 8-node Beowulf(cub) switchless, with at least 3 NICs/node
early next year. Much unexploited potential lies hidden in U-Net
and 3D Now! SIMD instructions as well. Of course you can start
instantly with MPI/PVM and PVFS, and use the cluster as a vanilla
parallel supercomputer, using the advanced features peu a peu.
ciao,
'gene
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