MandrakeClustering Shows Off At ISC2003

joestar writes "Just released today at ISC2003, Germany, is "MandrakeClustering", a high-performance computing Linux distribution/solution, which sounds interesting, at least in the PR: Pentium support with optimizations made with the Intel compiler, 64-bit Opteron support (with in this case, up to 16 GB of RAM for each cluster's node!), parallelized URPMI (Mandrake's apt-get) and other dedicated tools. This product is based on a one-year research project "CLIC" involving MandrakeSoft and partners. A good snapshot of the product running a 3D real-time demo is available here. The interesting point now: MandrakeClustering's goal is to provide a system which is easy to deploy, easy to administer and use. Well... Mum would certainly love to play Quake with this toy."

openmosix easier

[cdc179]

It's easier to manage an openmosix cluster than this mandrake cluster. Plus you can run diskless nodes using ClusterKnoppix!.

Re:This is the problem with Linux

[RLiegh]

Consistent? /bin/sh is /bin/sh wether in NetBSD, OS X or GNU.
I'd consider xmms second only to win amp, dunno what your problem is...

easy OS install? How often do you have to install your os?

clustering research that improves multiplayer gaming well into the next decade? In my mind, that's priceless...

Re:Which is the best?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... thats entirely a 'personal preference' sort of thing.

Heres some stereotypical information about a few distros, though:

RedHat: Corporate Environment

Mandrake: Easy install, easy to use, but has some hard to resolve dependency issues

SuSE: If you are german

Debian: Do it yourselfer

Gentoo: huge 'coolness' factor, a get-it-while-its-still-hot sort of thing.

Slackware: The traditional disto for hard-core geeks

My bad

[mikeophile]

It can be downloaded here [mandrakesoft.com]

The $2,960 is to get support with it.

Re:openmosix easier

[KeyserDK]

READ! It clearly states that nodes can boot via PXE.

Re:openmosix easier

[cdc179]

Some organizations management might not allow them to set up PXE. In this case this gives them the convienence of booting workstation nodes into the cluster at night with just a CD. You can read all you want, but you missed the whole point of using the CD for non-Linux nodes.

Re:We make jokes about Quake

[bm_luethke]

Where I work (www.ornl.gov) we run weather models, nuclear stuff (explosions, fallout tracking, power plants, nuclear medical materials simulations), genome projects, particle flow analisys, a bunch of stuff (though unfortunatly for Mr. Dyslexic here no speel checker for slashdot :) ). Oil companies process seismic data to try and map what's underground, medical companies help develope medicines and gene therapy.

Some of the projects (human genome most currently) may run for weeks over 10-20 terabytes of data. The algorithms used are pretty mundane - you just need to do them A LOT. Some of the particle flow stuff may model individual molecules in a furnace for example (not rendering the frames, but modelling the interactions and how to create a more effecient jet engine).

Re:We make jokes about Quake

[Anonymous Coward]

CFD is one of the major uses of clusters

Re:We make jokes about Quake

[InodoroPereyra]

But what are people doing with these things in the wild?

Huh ? How got this modded as insightful ? Anyways, if you read the announcement, this is for high performance computing. It is a turn-key solution to easily set up, maintain and monitor a parallel cluster. Parallel clusters are essentially arrangements of computers that allow to process data at each computer at the same time ("in parallel"), and then collect the results and combine them, thus making possible to achieve supercomputing power out of inexpensive hardware.

The announcement very clearly states which is the market niche they target (i.e. research labs and the like):

"MandrakeClustering is not only a impressive example of innovative Linux technology, but it's also a complete "all-in-one" solution that includes support & assistance for "real-world" clustering deployments and critical research lab activities. We are extremely confident that this product will answer the needs of numerous technology research centers where time of deployment and ease of administration are highly valued", said FranÃois Bancilhon, MandrakeSoft CEO.

By the way. It is so nice to see Mandrake aiming at corporate/government customers, this is going to be very healthy for the company. I would expect and encourage more of this ...

The 3D Demo

[Hufo]

I am the main programmer of the 3d demo shown on the screenshots. This demo combines a distributed interactive fluid simulation with graphical intensive rendering using pixel shaders. It uses Net Juggler [sf.net] to manage the distribution on the cluster. You canse some picture and a video of the fluid simulation in our gallery [sf.net] . The shader for the rabbit's fur is explained on this page [planet-d.net] of my website (please be gentle with the server...).

Re:Cluster File System

[Götz]

I guess you should read a few papers about what clusters really are. I shouldn't hurt to RTFA either. MandrakeClustering isn't a high availability solution, it's for number crunching. Stuff like Openmosix is for high availability.

There are basically these two kinds of clusters, one for the traditional high performance computing stuff to replace expensive supercomputers, the other one is for high availability, e.g. for preventing the Slashdot effect.