Reccomended vendors for rackmount systems for computational cluster?

Armitage

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Feb 23, 2001
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Posted this in networking, but this is probably more appropriate...

We're probably going with dual 2.6GHz Xeons. 1 or 2U form factor.
Reccomended vendors?

Any experience with Appro? I have quotes from there, Penguin Computing, HP, ASA.
We won't be going with Aspen Systems or Microway due to some past issues.
 

thorin

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Oct 9, 1999
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If you're set on Intel then check Dell

If you aren't then check Sun and Apple.

Thorin
 

Armitage

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Feb 23, 2001
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Yea, I should've mentioned Dell ... their price is so far out of the ballpark that I didn't bother listing them before.
 

Armitage

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Its a small cluster ... 8 nodes + server. Working specs for the nodes are

1 or 2U
2 x 2.6 GHz Xeon (533MHz FSB)
1GB RAM
GB Ethernet
HD is irrelevent, nothing on the nodes should be hitting the disk.

Server will be about the same, except SCSI RAID5, an extra GB of RAM and in a tower instead of a rack.

Some quotes so far (per node):

Appro: $1795
ASA: $1995
Penguin Computing: $2529
HP: $3362 (no IDE option)
Dell: $5009 (No IDE option)

Still waiting on Linux Networx

For comparison:
Similar system w/ 2x2600+ AthlonMP
Appro: $1854

Similar system w/ 2x2400+ AthlonMP
Penguin: $2167

Similar system w/ 2x1.4GHz Opteron
Appro: $1981

 

thorin

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Oct 9, 1999
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Do they have to be rackmount?

There was a /. article about 2mo ago about a university or something using Shuttle SFF systems to make a huge SuperComputer (300 shuttle cubes or something like that).

Now obviously they wouldn't be dualy's but to equal the performance of 8 dualies you probably wouldn't need 2x as many systems since dualies aren't 100% efficient. You could probably do just as well with 12 or 14 single's as you would with 8 dualies.

Have you looked into Sun blade servers (or similar)?

Thorin