I have a cluster of 8 Linux machines connected with gigabit ethernet (full duplex) to a HP Procurve 2848 switch. I am using the machines to do interactive distributed rendering. I have noticed that the final gather stage (where the intermediate images from the render nodes are sent back to the viewing node) has "hiccups" in the performance. These hiccups occur with as few as two render nodes, and become more common as I add more render nodes. With a 512x512 image the final gather usually takes a few milliseconds for each frame, but when the hiccups occur it is more like 200+ milliseconds.
Since it is a full duplex switched network, there should not be any collisions happening. Since the image is less than 1 MB total, I don't think I am saturating the switch. I have checked the contents of /sbin/ifconfig and there are zero erroneous packets being reported. At this point I am really at a loss as to what is causing this. Any input on things to check would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Brendan
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