5 ms·

"This build is for you if you:" ahem, for 600 dollars I get a fine computer which can host all the kubernets and docker I ever want in a nice formfactor... I

by fock 6y ago

"This build is for you if you:" ahem, for 600 dollars I get a fine computer which can host all the kubernets and docker I ever want in a nice formfactor... I mean, it's cool and all, but effectively utterly useless except for the blinking lights.

dumb1224 6y ago
Very cool work! I wonder the same, for a 'cluster' I'm expecting performance and large memory for example for scientific computing. Other than that I couldn't think of any other use cases. If anyone could enlighten me? Cheers
- noir_lord 6y ago
  They built a multi-thousand pi cluster to test the SMP and configuration stuff before running it on a super computer. Virtualising thousands of CPUs on a single machine is still not trivial. Never mind simulating real world network issues. https://www.bitscope.com/blog/FM/?p=GF19A https://www.bitscope.com/blog/FM/?p=GF19A
  - fock 6y ago
    yes, if you want to optimize a worst-case MPI-cluster, then a Pi (4) might be optimal for you (because sadly, 4 measly ARM cores with 100MBit/s is a some magnitudes removed from 100 cores and 100GBit/s Infiniband). But then you can also use a stack of old desktops, which is cheaper and you can just throw in a standard image and everything (including CUDA and MKL) can work.
    - noir_lord 6y ago
      > But then you can also use a stack of old desktops, which is cheaper If electricity and cooling is free.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  I made a cluster of 9 pi's for a work project, not for the computing power but for the segmentation. I had 8 pieces of equipment that needed to be monitored while undergoing various physical tests. A simple app was developed that would run on each piece being tested and communicate over the ethernet port each millisecond back to a pi, which then forwarded the on/off status to a central pc connected to the 9th pi acting as a wifi access point. This computer served as the monitor/display and logger of the system so we could see at a glance if everything was green and reporting or not. It was important that each piece be physically isolated so that we knew the whole path was operational and nothing was short circuiting via something else's network connection. You could have accomplished something similar with VLANs and some routes, but this allowed for easier troubleshooting and to explain to the powers that be how things were guaranteed isolated because they could see it. Plus it looked cool.
Mumps 6y ago
Depends what you're going for. I did a pi zero cluster a couple years back and it was an absolutely fantastic learning experience for me. There was something about it being tangible that helped keep me interested and force me to actually get it running. Also, the memory limitations, for example, made for a cool problem in setting up Hadoop on it. It can totally be worth it to do something suboptimal, if it leads to a better learning path :)
tssva 6y ago
And cost effective redundancy.

by fock 6y ago

dumb1224 6y ago

Very cool work! I wonder the same, for a 'cluster' I'm expecting performance and large memory for example for scientific computing. Other than that I couldn't think of any other use cases. If anyone could enlighten me? Cheers

noir_lord 6y ago
They built a multi-thousand pi cluster to test the SMP and configuration stuff before running it on a super computer. Virtualising thousands of CPUs on a single machine is still not trivial. Never mind simulating real world network issues. https://www.bitscope.com/blog/FM/?p=GF19A https://www.bitscope.com/blog/FM/?p=GF19A
- fock 6y ago
  yes, if you want to optimize a worst-case MPI-cluster, then a Pi (4) might be optimal for you (because sadly, 4 measly ARM cores with 100MBit/s is a some magnitudes removed from 100 cores and 100GBit/s Infiniband). But then you can also use a stack of old desktops, which is cheaper and you can just throw in a standard image and everything (including CUDA and MKL) can work.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    > But then you can also use a stack of old desktops, which is cheaper If electricity and cooling is free.
mysterydip 6y ago
I made a cluster of 9 pi's for a work project, not for the computing power but for the segmentation. I had 8 pieces of equipment that needed to be monitored while undergoing various physical tests. A simple app was developed that would run on each piece being tested and communicate over the ethernet port each millisecond back to a pi, which then forwarded the on/off status to a central pc connected to the 9th pi acting as a wifi access point. This computer served as the monitor/display and logger of the system so we could see at a glance if everything was green and reporting or not. It was important that each piece be physically isolated so that we knew the whole path was operational and nothing was short circuiting via something else's network connection. You could have accomplished something similar with VLANs and some routes, but this allowed for easier troubleshooting and to explain to the powers that be how things were guaranteed isolated because they could see it. Plus it looked cool.

Mumps 6y ago

Depends what you're going for. I did a pi zero cluster a couple years back and it was an absolutely fantastic learning experience for me. There was something about it being tangible that helped keep me interested and force me to actually get it running. Also, the memory limitations, for example, made for a cool problem in setting up Hadoop on it. It can totally be worth it to do something suboptimal, if it leads to a better learning path :)

tssva 6y ago

And cost effective redundancy.