Putting Computers Together

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Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.

--
"Duct tape is a lot like the Force. It has a Dark side, a Light side, and it
holds all the pieces of the Universe together"
 
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On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, Daniel P wrote:

> Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
> big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.

You can link them in a linux cluster, but I don't think 3 would reach
supercomputer level these days. And I'm not sure what it takes to do it.
haven given it much thought. A search for linux cluster would probably get
you going.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm
 
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I have seen them refferred to as Beowulf clusters. And yeah, 3 computers is
neat but imagine a lab of 500 P4 machines with gigabit ethernet, all working
together to encode a AVI or crack a password, now THAT is something.

--Dan

"Wes Newell" <w.newell@TAKEOUTverizon.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2004.04.28.06.50.17.407351@TAKEOUTverizon.net...
> On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, Daniel P wrote:
>
> > Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as
one
> > big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.
>
> You can link them in a linux cluster, but I don't think 3 would reach
> supercomputer level these days. And I'm not sure what it takes to do it.
> haven given it much thought. A search for linux cluster would probably get
> you going.
>
> --
> Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
> http://mysite.verizon.net/res0exft/cpu.htm
 
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Yes, it can be done, but not on your budget.

--
DaveW



"Daniel P" <none@none.com> wrote in message
news:t%Ejc.11006$Qy.263@fed1read04...
> Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as
one
> big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.
>
> --
> "Duct tape is a lot like the Force. It has a Dark side, a Light side, and
it
> holds all the pieces of the Universe together"
>
>
 
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>I have seen them refferred to as Beowulf clusters. And yeah, 3 computers is
>neat but imagine a lab of 500 P4 machines with gigabit ethernet, all working
>together to encode a AVI or crack a password, now THAT is something.

To the OP, check out "building linux clusters," I think it's an O'reilly book.
Was at the local library.

Michael
 
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On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, "Daniel P" <none@none.com> wrote:

>Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
>big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.


Yes , it's called clustering.
Does require more than a bit of work though.

Here are some links to get you started:

http://www.winnetmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=7291&Key=Clustering
http://www.labmice.net/Windows2000/Clustering/default.htm
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:z2BRsVSJ3voJ:research.microsoft.com/users/gray/Wolfpack_Compcon.doc+nt+cluster&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/tutorial/tutorial.html
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/beowulf/tutorial/building.html
http://grappew2k.imag.fr/
 
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On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, "Daniel P" <none@none.com> wrote:

>Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
>big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.


Here's some more links:

>http://www.windowsclusters.org/
>http://www.windowsclusters.org/projects.htm
>http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/faq.asp
>http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp
>http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/hpc/clusmgmt.asp
>http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/CC/ntcluster/Building.html
>http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/
>http://www.netlib.org/pvm3/index.html
>http://www.windowsclusters.org/publications.htm
>http://www.windowsclusters.org/software.htm
>http://www.nwnetworks.com/mscslinks.htm
>http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp
 
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>>Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
>>big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.

I think the programming is the tough part. Something like cracking password
hashes does very well on parallelized machine. Just hand of chunks of work to
each, and your all set. But a lot of problems are much more complex. I
believe with some problems the speed increases with the root of the number of
cpu's / machines rather than being linear.

VMS lends itself to clustering, but I doubt it's used on supercomputers. You
could have SIMH running on linux then get a copy of VMS/VAX and run it on each.
The hobbyist license would be $30. Then you could cluster the VMS machines.
Just an idea. I'm going to set up some emulated VAXEN at some point.

The O'reilly book covers linux clusters. Don't know about windows clusters or
how that is done.

Michael
 
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gothika wrote:
>
> On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, "Daniel P" <none@none.com> wrote:
>
> >Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
> >big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.
>
> Here's some more links:
>
> >http://www.windowsclusters.org/
> >http://www.windowsclusters.org/projects.htm
> >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/faq.asp
> >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp
> >http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/hpc/clusmgmt.asp
> >http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/CC/ntcluster/Building.html
> >http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/
> >http://www.netlib.org/pvm3/index.html
> >http://www.windowsclusters.org/publications.htm
> >http://www.windowsclusters.org/software.htm
> >http://www.nwnetworks.com/mscslinks.htm
> >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp

OK, that's impressive.
 
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On 29 Apr 2004 19:10:02 GMT, jealousxmp@aol.commonplace (jealous xmp)
wrote:

>>>Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together as one
>>>big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.
>
>I think the programming is the tough part. Something like cracking password
>hashes does very well on parallelized machine. Just hand of chunks of work to
>each, and your all set. But a lot of problems are much more complex. I
>believe with some problems the speed increases with the root of the number of
>cpu's / machines rather than being linear.
>
>VMS lends itself to clustering, but I doubt it's used on supercomputers. You
>could have SIMH running on linux then get a copy of VMS/VAX and run it on each.
> The hobbyist license would be $30. Then you could cluster the VMS machines.
>Just an idea. I'm going to set up some emulated VAXEN at some point.
>
>The O'reilly book covers linux clusters. Don't know about windows clusters or
>how that is done.
>
>Michael

On windows it works like this:
win2kpro- 2 cpu's max
win2k server- 4 cpu's max
win2k advance server- anything over 4

One of the links I posted is to a site that has a open source program
for running windows clusters and task allocation.
Just do a dogpile or google for windows clusters and you'll find 100's
of sites that show how it's been done.
Not saying it's simple just that with a bit of sweat it can be done.
I've got several 1gig amd machines sitting in the back shop waiting
for the day when I can get around to building one for myself.
I do msotly video rendering and it'd speed up my business greatly and
with near zero outlay. Which is the main point of cluster farms, using
old gear to get near gigaflop performance.
 
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"ToolPackinMama" <laura@lauragoodwin.org> wrote in message
news:4091BCD5.CE6E5C8F@lauragoodwin.org...
> gothika wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 19:52:24 -0700, "Daniel P" <none@none.com> wrote:
> >
> > >Can you put say 3 home computers together and make them work together
as one
> > >big supercomputer? Link them somehow and make them function as one.
> >
> > Here's some more links:
> >
> > >http://www.windowsclusters.org/
> > >http://www.windowsclusters.org/projects.htm
> > >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/faq.asp
> > >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp
> > >http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/hpc/clusmgmt.asp
> > >http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/CC/ntcluster/Building.html
> > >http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/
> > >http://www.netlib.org/pvm3/index.html
> > >http://www.windowsclusters.org/publications.htm
> > >http://www.windowsclusters.org/software.htm
> > >http://www.nwnetworks.com/mscslinks.htm
> > >http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/hpc/cluscomp.asp
>
> OK, that's impressive.
for linux cluster, try http://www.mosix.org/
also check the yahoo group of
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxclusterproject/