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http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1276
Terrasoft builds 30-node Xserve cluster
By ron carlson, Insanely Great Mac
November 19th 2002
Chewy G4 goodness and bulletproof GPL code makes for a powerful combination
Terra Soft Solutions has announced the installation of a 30-node Xserve cluster
running Yellow Dog Linux and Black Lab at the University of Colorado. The cluster,
underwritten by a grant from the National Science Foundation, is housed in the
Department of Biology, and will assist researchers who are interested in understanding
the biophysics of computation in neural dendrites.
Professor Jeffrey Fox, Department of Mathematics, has developed code for the cluster
which enables new and more detailed models of neuron functions at the molecular
dynamics level. "From my point of view, there is going to be explosive growth in
demand for HPC in the biological sciences. The very nature of the people using this
technology requires as little assembly of the hardware and software as possible,
otherwise small labs will not be able to afford the time and expense of using cluster
computing. While cluster computing is not a yet turn key affair ... the closer it gets
to workstation status the more it will be incorporated into small labs," states
Professor Fox.
As an Apple Authorized OEM VAR, Terra Soft is uniquely positioned to provide single
source HPC solutions to this growing market. Terra Soft's Black Lab cluster
build-management suite offers single-click installation, simple configuration,
automated updates through apt-get, and control from either an X windows graphical user
interface or command line.
The Apple Xserve offers a price/performance competitive solution, flexible as a
headless HPC node with as many as four or no local drives at all. Black Lab eliminates
the need for keyboard and monitor switches, provides automated server to node process
migration, and is immediately scalable to several hundred nodes.
In order to get the project off the ground, Terra Soft assisted Fox with code
development by assembling a four-node Black Lab-YDL cluster using existing University
Apple PowerMac G4s.
Editor's note: This is an interesting project and it's great that Macs are at the
heart of it. However, I think it behooves Apple to create or allow the creation of
low-cost white-box solutions to service the scientific market. Stackable/rackmountable
white box solutions that are sold for $400 to $800 could greatly benefit their efforts
at cracking the scientific market.
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