Abstract
Building a Supercomputer for Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol.34, pp.565-565
Dec 2001
Abstract
Ever since the first off-the-shelf distributed memory computing cluster (Beowulf) was constructed at the Goddard Space Flight Center, systems composed of commodity hardware have been attractive solutions to difficult scientific computing problems. Beowulfs are relatively easy to construct, maintain, and program, and provide an unbeatable cost per performance ratio. The Drexel University Physics Department was the first academic department to utilize Beowulf clusters, and has since built a successor. We are in the process of building a new cluster, one with the express design goal of maximum flexibility at very low construction price. We discuss a possible design of such a system with dual Athlon MP processors and channel-bonded 100 Mbps Ethernet. This hardware combination provides maximum performance at a minimum price, which is further strengthened by in-house construction of the entire system. We present a review of Beowulfs, comparisons of other hardware solutions and performance projections.
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Details
- Title
- Building a Supercomputer for Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!
- Creators
- Ernest N Mamikonyan - Drexel UniversityDavid M Goldberg - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol.34, pp.565-565
- Conference
- 199th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (Washington, District of Columbia, United States, 06 Jan 2002 - 10 Jan 2002)
- Publisher
- American Astronomical Society
- Number of pages
- 1
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Physics
- Identifiers
- 991021906510904721