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Re: [LUG] Clustering Mboards...

 

> Hi, I just recently aquired board and processor. Also I'm in the middle of
> putting my new machine together in my new place.
>  Can anyone tell me the easiest way of clustering these boards together
> please?
>  I have Googled but the results were a bit contradictory. Ofetn the
> information was about someone building a monster machine where they go into
> the water cooling in more depth than the dual motherboard set up.
>  Also I have a nice Sun server that I've been meaning to make use of for
> ages. Would it be possible to make a dual PC using one server board and one
> desktop?...

Hi Jon,

I'm not 100% sure if I'm reading you right here, it's also 5:49am as I
type and I'm coming to the end of a shift here so forgive me if I get
the wrong end of the stick and proceed to beat myself over the head
with it.

If you are talking about two motherboards and respective "stuff" in
one box sharing RAM, hard disk and operating system, this just isnt
possible really.  The physical connectivity alone wont be there.
Motherboards are generally designed with the idea of plugging in the
stuff needed to run one instance of an operating system with a fixed
set of internal resources.  The closest you could get is somehow to
put the two motherboards inside a single box with thier own individual
operating systems housed on thier own boot devices, and then share the
resourses back and forth using a method of viewing both desktops (such
as a switch to swap which motherboard is connected to the screen or a
VNC variant).

Clustering is usually more than one computer (however they are housed)
connected together via a network of some sort with one of the
computers used to distribute chunks of a workload to the slave
devices.  They "do" the work and then send back results and ask if
there are any more chunks ad infinitum.

I have seen a few examples where these clustered devices have been
built into a single unit - take many modern "blade" styled servers for
instance.  I've also seen a couple of natty home made boxes containing
more than one computer (motherboards and all).

Chances are though, you'll be mixing and matching what you have.
Perhaps settle for a couple of boxes and a single screen connected
with a keyboard/mouse/video switch?

Hope this helps,

Tel.

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