Cluster Computing - Architectures, Operating Systems, Parallel Processing And Programming Languages

Author Name: Richard S. Morrison
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................... 12
1.1. BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTING AND NETWORKING .............................................................................. 12
1.2. PARALLEL PROCESSING ......................................................................................................................... 12
1.3. MOTIVATION.......................................................................................................................................... 13
1.3.1. Applications of Parallel Processing.............................................................................................. 14
2. ARCHITECTURES.................................................................................................................................... 17
2.1. COMPUTER CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES.................................................................................................. 17
2.2. CLUSTER COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES................................................................................. 21
2.3. BEOWULF............................................................................................................................................... 22
2.3.1. History........................................................................................................................................... 22
2.3.2. Overview ....................................................................................................................................... 23
2.3.3. Classification................................................................................................................................. 24
2.4. NOW/COW........................................................................................................................................... 25
2.5. DISTRIBUTED VS. CENTRALIZED SYSTEMS ............................................................................................ 26
3. SYSTEM DESIGN...................................................................................................................................... 28
3.1. PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS............................................................................................................. 29
3.1.1. The Need for Performance Evaluation.......................................................................................... 29
3.1.2. Performance Indices of Parallel Computation.............................................................................. 30
3.1.3. Theoretical Performance of Parallel Computers .......................................................................... 31
3.1.4. Performance Analysis and Measurement...................................................................................... 36
3.1.5. Practical Performance of Parallel Computers.............................................................................. 36
3.2. HARDWARE PLATFORMS........................................................................................................................ 38
3.2.1. CPU............................................................................................................................................... 38
3.2.2. Symmetric Multiprocessing ........................................................................................................... 38
3.2.3. Basic Network Architectures ......................................................................................................... 40
3.2.3.1. Network Channel Bonding ........................................................................................................................42
3.2.4. Node Interconnection Technologies.............................................................................................. 43
3.3. OPERATING SYSTEMS ............................................................................................................................ 44
3.3.1. General.......................................................................................................................................... 44
3.3.2. Towards Parallel Systems ............................................................................................................. 44
3.3.3. Implementations ............................................................................................................................ 46
3.3.4. Redhat Linux 7.2 ........................................................................................................................... 46
3.3.5. Microsoft Windows 2000............................................................................................................... 50
3.3.6. Sun Solaris .................................................................................................................................... 54
3.3.7. Other ............................................................................................................................................. 54
3.4. MIDDLEWARE ........................................................................................................................................ 55
3.4.1. Parallel Communications Libraries.............................................................................................. 56
3.4.1.1. PVM Overview..........................................................................................................................................56
3.4.1.2. MPI Overview ...........................................................................................................................................57
3.4.2. Application Development Packages.............................................................................................. 59
3.4.2.1. BSP............................................................................................................................................................61
3.4.2.2. ARCH........................................................................................................................................................61
4. SYSTEM INSTALLATION & TESTING................................................................................................ 63
4.1. BUILDING A BEOWULF ........................................................................................................................... 63
4.2. PERFORMANCE TESTING ........................................................................................................................ 66
4.2.1. Beowulf Performance Suite........................................................................................................... 66
4.2.2. The Linpack Benchmark................................................................................................................ 67
4.3. SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION..................................................................................................................... 68
4.3.1. General.......................................................................................................................................... 68
4.3.2. Mosixview...................................................................................................................................... 68
4.4. APPLICATIONS TESTING......................................................................................................................... 69
4.4.1. Persistence of Vision ..................................................................................................................... 69
5. RESULTS .................................................................................................................................................... 73
5.1. SUMMARY OF NUMERICAL DATA .......................................................................................................... 73
5.2. RESULTS ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................... 73
6. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................ 76
7. REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................ 78
8. APPENDIX.................................................................................................................................................. 85
8.1. APPENDIX A – NODE INTERCONNECTION TECHNOLOGIES..................................................................... 86
8.1.1. Class 1 Network Hardware ........................................................................................................... 86
8.1.2. Class 2 Network Hardware ........................................................................................................... 90
8.2. APPENDIX B – CHANNEL BONDING ....................................................................................................... 97
8.3. APPENDIX C – MPI IMPLEMENTATIONS .............................................................................................. 103
8.3.1. LAM............................................................................................................................................. 104
8.3.2. MPICH ........................................................................................................................................ 105
8.4. APPENDIX D – POV-RAY .................................................................................................................... 106
8.4.1. POV-Ray Benchmark .................................................................................................................. 106
8.4.2. Alternate Bench Mark POV Files................................................................................................ 108
8.4.3. POV-Ray Benchmark Performance data..................................................................................... 117
8.5. APPENDIX E – RAW RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 118
8.5.1. Lam MPI Cluster boot-up and tear-down ................................................................................... 118
8.5.2. POV-Ray ..................................................................................................................................... 119


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