[coreboot] LNXI eVelocity 2 BIOS reburn

[Sebastian Lara]

2009/9/4 ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com>:
> On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 6:40 PM, Sebastian Lara<slara at udec.cl> wrote:
>
>> Just because we start using ROCKS Clusters.  Are there some cluster
>> distributions that can run without local disk on nodes?
>
> Yes. I strongly suggest you take a look at this: http://onesis.org/
>
> No local disks required. How big is your cluster? If less than 128
> nodes, just run NFS root with one NFS root server. onesis is
> incredibly clever, in that you can easily configure it to put each
> nodes /tmp, /var, and so on in local ramfs or on a local disk.
>
> We use it to run a 4400 node (not a typo) system at sandia: it scales.
> We have many different types of installations, and it runs well one
> even very small systems, like my Geode clusters.
>
> And, it's very network oriented, but allows you to have data on local
> disks. I'm really sold on it. One of our newer interns, Chris Kinney,
> who is also on this list, can tell you more. He set up an 80-node
> cluster, with no previous experience, in an afternoon.
>
> I think if you went with onesis you could avoid having to refresh your
> bios. Your life would be easier.
>
> For compute node clusters, in fact, the best thing you can do is yank
> the disks and throw them away -- unless you need them for local data
> storage. They tend to cause trouble. I have not built a disk-based
> cluster in 10 years, and I've built clusters that range in size from 4
> nodes to 2048 nodes. Local disks are just trouble.
>
> While I respect the work the Rocks guys have done, I think onesis is a
> good way to go. So does Sun: they use onesis for their commercial
> cluster offerings.
>
> Thanks

This sounds really good. I will definitely try this. Thanks.


-- 
Sebastián Lara Menares
Ingeniería Civil Electrónica
Universidad de Concepción