Difference between revisions of "Big-FE-teragrid-abstract"
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There is a shortage of high performance computing (HPC) resources for educational use. Big-FE, short for Focus on Education, is a complete design and hardware prototype for a cost effective, energy efficient, and scalable HPC resource. Big-FE uses a diskless compute node architecture running the open source Bootable Cluster CD distribution. Our design is a synergy of the classic Beowulf commodity-off-the-shelf cluster philosophy and the commercial blade approach to computational cluster design. Leveraging the strengths of each approach, it provides a cost effective computing platform for computational science education. | There is a shortage of high performance computing (HPC) resources for educational use. Big-FE, short for Focus on Education, is a complete design and hardware prototype for a cost effective, energy efficient, and scalable HPC resource. Big-FE uses a diskless compute node architecture running the open source Bootable Cluster CD distribution. Our design is a synergy of the classic Beowulf commodity-off-the-shelf cluster philosophy and the commercial blade approach to computational cluster design. Leveraging the strengths of each approach, it provides a cost effective computing platform for computational science education. | ||
| − | We measure the energy consumption of the Big-FE prototype and compare it with popular commercial HPC platforms. Our physical layout is organized to minimize both maintenance and cooling costs. We detail the cost structure | + | We measure the energy consumption of the Big-FE prototype and compare it with popular commercial HPC platforms. Our physical layout is organized to minimize both maintenance and cooling costs. We detail the full cost structure -- both up-front and on-going -- and estimated performance for Big-FE and compare these with popular commercial HPC platforms. |
===Notes=== | ===Notes=== | ||
Revision as of 14:35, 12 May 2006
Big-FE - A cost and power efficient platform for high performance computing education
Alex Lemann(*), Josh McCoy(*), Tobias McNulty(*), Charles Peck. Cluster Computing Group, Earlham College.
Abstract:
There is a shortage of high performance computing (HPC) resources for educational use. Big-FE, short for Focus on Education, is a complete design and hardware prototype for a cost effective, energy efficient, and scalable HPC resource. Big-FE uses a diskless compute node architecture running the open source Bootable Cluster CD distribution. Our design is a synergy of the classic Beowulf commodity-off-the-shelf cluster philosophy and the commercial blade approach to computational cluster design. Leveraging the strengths of each approach, it provides a cost effective computing platform for computational science education.
We measure the energy consumption of the Big-FE prototype and compare it with popular commercial HPC platforms. Our physical layout is organized to minimize both maintenance and cooling costs. We detail the full cost structure -- both up-front and on-going -- and estimated performance for Big-FE and compare these with popular commercial HPC platforms.
Notes
- Topics to include:
- Power consumption
- Packaging and density
- Cost of purchasing
- Cost of ownership
