Clustering Solution

[Manjunath Shastry]

Greetings Gurus,

I have an Application named Abaqus installed on HP-UX 11.11 on HP work station c3700. The jobs pertaining to this application are CPU intensive. Currently there is a process being executed for the last 15 Days. I am executing this process using rtprio utility which executes the process in real timem, even this does not seem to help.

To increase the processing capacity of the System, I am considering various options

1. Add one more Processor ( The Hardware does not seem to support)

2. Make a Cluster of HP Systems and distribute the Application among the Cluster.

Any suggestions or pointers here will be of good help.

Regards,
Manju.

[Pete Randall]

Manju,

Get yourself a used L-class and put several 550 MHz processors in it. Relatively cheap and much more horsepower!


Pete

[Steven E. Protter]

Service Guard is HP's HP-UX clustering solution.

Its meant for servers to provide 24/7 reliability. I'm not sure it can cluster workstations.

It would seem your application requires a server class machine capable of supporting multiple CPU's.

THe rp5400 series are affordable and have the expandability to meet the job.

As is often said, the right tool for the right job.

SEP

[Srinivas_29]

Better if you chose L Class or N Class Server to get high speed processing.

MC/Serviceguard give high availability but not speed. It won't support on workstations.

[Chris Vail]

Like the others said, you need to move this to a server, rather than executing it on a workstation. But, unlike the others who recommend an N or L class, I'll mention a couple of alternatives.
First would be an RP2430. With a 650Mhz processor, its less than $900US, you'll need to add RAM (HP RAM is about $400, Kingston is about $100). You can get a double processor 2470 with (2) 750Mhz processors and a lot of RAM for under $10000 US. This is probably the most processing power for the money in your situation. It'll be good unless you need more than one fiber card for your disk array. Both RP24XX machines are new technology, and REALLY fast.
Next up would be an RP5430 or RP5470. Both of these are pricey--$30k and up, but you can put up to 4 processors, either 650Mhz or 750Mhz, and all kinds of RAM. They also have lots of room for fiber optic cards to connect to your disk storage. All of these machines are available on the refurb market, where you can save additional money.
Because your program is so CPU intensive, I really recommend that you get processors that are faster than the 440Mhz & 550Mhz processors that are available on the N & L class machines.



Chris

[Manjunath Shastry]

Greetings Gurus,

Thank you for the suggestions. They were immensly informative. I am collecting the necesary information to procure a Server. I will keep you updated.

Regards,
Manjunath.

[Manjunath Shastry]

Greetings Gurus,

I have an option to rent an HP J5000 Server. the configuration is 440 Mhz * 2 CPUS, 120 Mhz Bus Speed, 4 GB RAM and 36*4 SCSI HDD.

Can I rent this System for my CPU intensive jobs ?

Looking Forward.

Regards,
Manjunath.

[Manjunath Shastry]

A correction it is a HP J5000 Workstation not a Server.

[Mike Fisher_5]

Manju

You can always rent
Is that what you're asking?

If your last question is about difference between workstation & server...
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x197eeb281831d6118fff0090279cd0f9,00.html

Sorry I can't be more helpful !!
Mike "Slow Clock Speed" Fisher

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,

You can find some information about Abacus running on multiple CPUs here:
http://www.hks.com/products/products_performance.html

As most FEM applications, Abacus don't scale well on multiple CPUs. In general, a few (1 or 2) very fast CPUs is better then large number of slower. Perhaps, the best solution for HP-UX is a 2 CPU Itanium.

[Zeev Schultz]

I would be cautios about the "probing" method
of choosing a proper cpu match.Visit hks site
(abaqus home page),here:
http://www.hks.com/products/products_computers.html
They run some benchmarks,and I beleive they can
also be contacted and asked for cpu needs.

Zeev