High performance computing on FreeBSD
Gayn Winters
gayn.winters at bristolsystems.com
Mon Feb 6 09:19:17 PST 2006
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of O. Hartmann
> Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 7:50 AM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: High performance computing on FreeBSD
>
> FreeBSd is now since 1996 my companion in scientific computing and
> related server systems and also my favorite operating system
> for every network stuff, firewalls and desktop systems I ever used.
>
> Now going ahaed with 64Bit, FreeBSD 6.X has been canceled for desktop
> systems due to the lack of a working JAVA in native 64Bit and
> especially a working native 64 Bit OpenOffice environment.
>
> Nevertheless, the experience of our group and especially of mine with
> several flavours of Linux, used at our computer center and
> its network performance and stability in comparison to FreeBSD's over
the
> same time period let me tend to ask for a FreeBSD based high
> performance computer cluster more than such one founded on a Linux
> distribution. But there are some open issues and those need
> to be discussed deeper.
>
> First targets SMP/Node performance. I was very curious about
> SCHED_ULE when introduced in FreeBSD 5.X and was said to deliver a
performance
> boost on SMP boxes. I'm still waiting for that to come true,
> every SMP scaling benchmark that has been taken in our computer center
> said Linux has the better SMP performance (on the same Opteron
hardware,
> but I do not have specific details about that, sorry).
> Next point is the intercommunication of nodes. Infiniband or with
> special Hypertransport coupplings nodes will be able to
> communicate very fast. GBit LAN will be the least option, so the
question is whether
> plans for or ready solutions for the node connections are underway.
> The last question refers to Fortran. Well, most of our
> scientists still work with Fortran77 or Fortran90/95 and it is hard to
bring
> them towards C/C++, so the existence of good Fotran compiler will be
> essential. GCC 4.1/4.2 isn't standard in FreeBSD 6.X but many of other
FreeBSD users
> told me they use the port's gcc 4.X very successful. But I
> feel better when the new GNU compiler collection will be the standard
for
> FreeBSD. This may sound weird for some of yours, but I like the ease
> of upgrading software in FreeBSD which has reached a very, very high
standard over
> the past 10 years (and it isn't comparable to jarsh weirdness I
> experienced with Linux, Solaris or Windows). So, utilizing standard
> ports and the base compiler collection gives a very stable and high
> quality platform - in my opinion.
>
> All right, this above mentioned fundamentals should be the
> basis for a small cluster system for numerical research.
> I still looking for benchmark tests, pro and contra regarding
> BSD/Linux (except the existence of better compiler software for Linux)
and the
> state of development of high performance node interconnect and
> designated driver software.
>
> Target hardware will be a four or six node Opteron/Athlon64 platform
> with dual socket/dual core chips, with 4 or 8 GB local RAM and 200 GB
> local SATA disk drives, but main disk array will be RAID
> system attached via GBit LAN or, if possible, faster. The big question
will remain in
> how the nodes should be interconnected and what kind of OS
> will be able to handle a specific interconnect (HTX/Infiniband).
>
> In the case my questions are to unspecific or naiv, please excuse
that.
>
> Oliver
It would seem to me that such a project wouldn't be too hard, but it
would take time, equipment, and expertise. If your center works with
several other like-thinking centers then you could probably pool some
combination of money, equipment and donated labor to such a project. If
you had these resources lined up, my guess is that might get some
additional help from one or more of the technical mailing lists
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/eresources.htm
l#ERESOURCES-MAIL
For example, hackers, amd64, or ia64.
It would be really nice to have FreeBSD be the unquestioned leader in
high performance computing.
-gayn
Bristol Systems Inc.
714/532-6776
www.bristolsystems.com
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