Real Experimental Batch Farm

To test scalability and other parameters discussed proposal it required to deploy small Batch PC Farm consisting of at least 3 PCs.

Main aim: to get real experience in deploying the batch system (CODINE, LSF, etc.) on small PC Farm and to collect user feedback, measurement the real farm parameters: comparing the execution time for selected jobs. It is planned such a farm will be used for simulation and microDST analysis.

In any case this pilot project will show for which type of calculations this farm will fit more.

It has been deploied experimental installation:

• two PCs:
  • Pentium II 266 MHz;
  • 512K cache;
  • 128MB main memory;
  • 5.2 GB EIDE disk drive;
  • video card (on mother board);
  • no monitor;
  • Fast Ethernet card;

• Hub Fast Ethernet: 3COM Super-Stack II 100 TX (12 port RJ-45);
• APC Smart-UPS 2000;
• Linux RedHat distribution;
• batch systems (CODINE, LSF);
• CERNlib (PAW and ROOT are included);
• central PC:
  • Pentium II 266 MHz;
  • 512K cache;
  • 256MB main memory;
  • disk drive 5.2 GB;
  • two Fast Ethernet card;
  • CD ROM;
  • monitor 15";

Things which should be done yet (12th Febryary 1998):

• hardware installation:
  • disk drive subsystem (30-100 GB);
  • tape drive DLT 7000;
  • special cabinet for the PC farm.

• software installation and tuning:
  • batch software (agreement on license);

• measurement of execution time for the selected jobs and other parameters;
• organizing the user access (over the Internet as well).