Cluster Monkey: Serious Cluster Design and Prototyping

“Last time we started to review just how to go about building a
serious cluster computer, beginning with a fairly complete
discussion of the space, power, and cooling requirements for a
cluster. If you read that column, you will recall that a lot of
design decisions for the cluster’s future space depend
(unsurprisingly) on the kind of hardware you plan to put into it.
Shelved tower units, rack mount single, dual, and even quad
processor systems, and bladed computers all require very different
amounts of physical space, electrical power per square foot of
floor space, cooling per cubic foot of room volume.

“Of course the reverse is true as well; if your room is
predetermined to be the old broom closet down the hall and you only
got that by threatening to hit someone with a blunt instrument,
then your hardware design decisions will be heavily influenced by
your available space and desired computational capacity (which for
all true cluster computing fiends is always ‘as much as I can get,
and then some’)…”

Complete
Story