5 ms·

Options for clusters of 16+ GB RAM 4+ core hosting?

2 points by gyro_robo 20y ago

aristus 20y ago
theplanet.com will rent you soemthing like that for USD$1,600 per month, plus bandwidth. You can also make it yourself and colo it. penguincomputing.com has a line called the Altus 600. It's a 1U machine with two CPU slots and 16 RAM slots. Source the RAM from Crucial or PNY, and you can get a 2 core, 16GB machine for about $3,300 bucks. http://www.penguincomputing.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=356&Itemid=526&task=view http://www.penguincomputing.com/index.php?option=com_content...
- gyro_robo 20y ago
  Thanks for that -- the Penguin computing 1Us look promising -- 16 slots! It's cool theplanet has high-end options -- though I recently read an article that gave me the impression they had some serious support problems related to the EV1 merger.
  - johnm 20y ago
    In terms of vendors, also check out SiliconMechanics. They're touting the new 2-in-1U chassis from Supermicro that does up to 16 x86 cores in 1U. :-) If you're in the Bay Area, ASA Computers is very competitive. They're in the south bay and deliver straight to our colo. For hardware support, they even come back to the colo and pull the boxes right off our racks, take them back and fix them, and then return them to our racks.
    - gyro_robo 20y ago
      16 cores in 1U is pretty amazing -- I wonder how long until we look at it like the Altair 8800 ;)
      - johnm 20y ago
        :-) If you're doing Java, Azul Systems does 192 cores in 5U.
        gyro_robo 20y ago
        Very interesting, a specialized processor. 192 cores and 192 GB in 5U and 1000 watts! I wonder how much performance a 5-watt chip gives you. In 10 years our cell phones will have 192 cores.
johnm 20y ago
What do you mean by "clusters"? High-end, low-latency compute clusters (using e.g., Myrinet) or just a rack of machines? Are you doing lots of calculation or lots of data or both? If you have lots of data, what's your storage model? If you're going to have lots of machines, what's your needs for connectivity (NICs, intra-cluster, 'net drops, etc.)?
- gyro_robo 20y ago
  Isn't a Myrinet cluster just a rack of machines with Myrinet cards? I am under the impression that 10gigE with TCP/UDP offload is pretty similar to 10gb Myrinet. Lots of calculation and data, hence the request for lots of CPU and RAM. Storage is RAM binary-dumped to flat files (snapshots), so standard hard drives are fine. Intra-cluster: preferably 10gigE but multiple 1gigE might work. Net connectivity would probably be okay with 1gigE (total). I can probably do some lower-end testing on Sun's compute grid, but real-world testing needs real-world hardware. It might seem like overkill at first, but every successful service seems to hit scaling issues sooner than they think!
  - johnm 20y ago
    If you need Myrinet for your clusters then you already know why. :-? The main reason for Myrinet, IMHO, is the low latency -- otherwise, it's not worth the money. 8GB RAM seems to be the sweet spot at the moment, price-wise. Similarly, the 500GB SATA drives are a much better deal than the 750+GB drives. Be careful when you spec. the boxes because if you don't specify that you're going to e.g., load them up with additional drives later, the builders will spec them with the smaller/cheapest controller they can. If all of the data can be handled locally then you definitely don't have a lot of data. :-). To calibrate, we're (krugle.com) pushing around terabytes of data. If you're pushing a lot of data between nodes, don't underestimate the importance of your network infrastructure and architecture. We're using multiple 1GigE NICs per node into Foundry SuperX's (IIRC, it has a 36Gbps fabric) and 10G crosses. We've got multiple 1Gbps backbone drops into our load balancers / firewalls. If you're going relatively mainstream on the CPU side, the dual-core Intel Xeons are definitely the choice at the moment. Watch out for the different FSB speeds. Re: Sun's Grid. They were very aggressively trying to get our business but they aren't really geared for big data and definitely not for big, relatively non-transient data. Hope this helps, John

2 points by gyro_robo 20y ago

theplanet.com will rent you soemthing like that for USD$1,600 per month, plus bandwidth. You can also make it yourself and colo it. penguincomputing.com has a line called the Altus 600. It's a 1U machine with two CPU slots and 16 RAM slots. Source the RAM from Crucial or PNY, and you can get a 2 core, 16GB machine for about $3,300 bucks. http://www.penguincomputing.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=356&Itemid=526&task=view http://www.penguincomputing.com/index.php?option=com_content...

gyro_robo 20y ago
Thanks for that -- the Penguin computing 1Us look promising -- 16 slots! It's cool theplanet has high-end options -- though I recently read an article that gave me the impression they had some serious support problems related to the EV1 merger.
- johnm 20y ago
  In terms of vendors, also check out SiliconMechanics. They're touting the new 2-in-1U chassis from Supermicro that does up to 16 x86 cores in 1U. :-) If you're in the Bay Area, ASA Computers is very competitive. They're in the south bay and deliver straight to our colo. For hardware support, they even come back to the colo and pull the boxes right off our racks, take them back and fix them, and then return them to our racks.
  - gyro_robo 20y ago
    16 cores in 1U is pretty amazing -- I wonder how long until we look at it like the Altair 8800 ;)
    - johnm 20y ago
      :-) If you're doing Java, Azul Systems does 192 cores in 5U.
      - gyro_robo 20y ago
        Very interesting, a specialized processor. 192 cores and 192 GB in 5U and 1000 watts! I wonder how much performance a 5-watt chip gives you. In 10 years our cell phones will have 192 cores.

johnm 20y ago

What do you mean by "clusters"? High-end, low-latency compute clusters (using e.g., Myrinet) or just a rack of machines? Are you doing lots of calculation or lots of data or both? If you have lots of data, what's your storage model? If you're going to have lots of machines, what's your needs for connectivity (NICs, intra-cluster, 'net drops, etc.)?

gyro_robo 20y ago
Isn't a Myrinet cluster just a rack of machines with Myrinet cards? I am under the impression that 10gigE with TCP/UDP offload is pretty similar to 10gb Myrinet. Lots of calculation and data, hence the request for lots of CPU and RAM. Storage is RAM binary-dumped to flat files (snapshots), so standard hard drives are fine. Intra-cluster: preferably 10gigE but multiple 1gigE might work. Net connectivity would probably be okay with 1gigE (total). I can probably do some lower-end testing on Sun's compute grid, but real-world testing needs real-world hardware. It might seem like overkill at first, but every successful service seems to hit scaling issues sooner than they think!
- johnm 20y ago
  If you need Myrinet for your clusters then you already know why. :-? The main reason for Myrinet, IMHO, is the low latency -- otherwise, it's not worth the money. 8GB RAM seems to be the sweet spot at the moment, price-wise. Similarly, the 500GB SATA drives are a much better deal than the 750+GB drives. Be careful when you spec. the boxes because if you don't specify that you're going to e.g., load them up with additional drives later, the builders will spec them with the smaller/cheapest controller they can. If all of the data can be handled locally then you definitely don't have a lot of data. :-). To calibrate, we're (krugle.com) pushing around terabytes of data. If you're pushing a lot of data between nodes, don't underestimate the importance of your network infrastructure and architecture. We're using multiple 1GigE NICs per node into Foundry SuperX's (IIRC, it has a 36Gbps fabric) and 10G crosses. We've got multiple 1Gbps backbone drops into our load balancers / firewalls. If you're going relatively mainstream on the CPU side, the dual-core Intel Xeons are definitely the choice at the moment. Watch out for the different FSB speeds. Re: Sun's Grid. They were very aggressively trying to get our business but they aren't really geared for big data and definitely not for big, relatively non-transient data. Hope this helps, John