Date post: | 21-Jan-2016 |
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Minimalist’s Linux Cluster
Changyoung Choi, Jeonghyun Kim, Seyong Kim
Department of PhysicsSejong University
Reported in Lattice’99
1. Usual Linux cluster
• Easy to build, use and maintain• Off-The-Shelf everything!
– Ordinary PC’s– Ordinary network components– Free OS (Linux)– Free parallel programming environment
(MPI)
Room for improvement
• Occupies too much space• Consumes too much power• Not all the components in an ordinary
PC is necessary for computation– Possible further reduction in cost!– Possible reduction in power consumption
• Supporting full bisection bandwidth is costly!
Conditions
• No custom-made hardwares– If it takes too long to develop ->
no advantage– If there is, should be recyclable
• Should be efficient enough• Should be do-able with small manpower
2. Construction(hardware)
• Node – ATX size standard mother board– Intel Pentium IV-2.4 GHz– 512 Mbytes DDR SDRAM– 100 Mbps ethernet card (3+1)– 180W power
• Cage for ATX size mother board• 1 front end server
CPU Intel P-4,2.4GHz
\236,500(=$198)x36
motherboard
ASUS P4PE \203,500(=$170)x36
memory 512MB PC2700 DDR
\112,200(=$93.5)x36
NIC 3+1 realtek \53,000(=$44)x36
power Sun ATX 180W \25,300(=$21)x36
cable \10,000(=$8)x36
cabinet 2000x910x750
\880,000(=$733)
cabinet accessory \365,200(=$304)
Cost per node $534.5
Total cost $534.5x36+$1037 = $20,279
Price Includes Tax
Software
• WOW Linux 7.1 (equiv. RedHat 7.1)• Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP)
– Remote booting (DHCP + TFTP)– Diskless node system
• 2-D mesh network configuration– Script developed in-house
• MPI programming environment– MPICH/LAM
Setup
• Front end wait• F-end send DHCP
info• send kernel using
TFTP service• send client file
system by NFS
• Node 1 power-up• NIC listens to DHCP
server• IP setup complete
and download kernel• setup file system on
memory and copy NFS mounted file system to memory
Setup(continued)
• Node 1 wait• Node 1 send DHCP
info• Node 1 send kernel
image• Node 1 act as a
pipe line between front end and node 2 for NFS
• Node 2 power-up• NIC listens to node 1
DHCP server• IP setup complete and
download kernel from node 1
• setup file system on memory and copy NFS mounted file system to memory
Parallel boot
3. Performance
• 1-D ring full QCD code– Not suitable for 2-D mesh structure
• 8^3 x 512 lattice
8^3 x 32 lattice testedon 1-node
1187 sec, CG = 181.2 -> 369 MFLOPS
8^3 x 512 lattice testedon 4-node
5522 sec, CG = 391.4 -> 1.24 GFLOPS
8^3 x 512 lattice testedon 8-node
3029 sec, CG = 390.9 -> 2.25 GFLOPS
4. Discussion
• recyclable– cabinet takes standard motherboard size
-> replacing node is enough for a upgrade
• occupies smaller foot-print, consumes less power
• need to fine-tune• need to modify the code for 1-D ring
to 2-D mesh