Brief Discription to

The Linux-based Pentium II/III/4 Cluster

in M. C. Lin Group at Emory University

The PC Cluster is built with a scalable collection of Dual Pentium II/300 MHz with 256 MB SDRAM memory or Dual Pentium II/400 MHz with 512 PC-100 SDRAM memory computers (currently 16) and a 4.5 GB USCSI disc drive. The operating system is RedHat Linux 5.2 and this kernel seems pretty stable (uptimes of approx. 60 days and longer) and provides excellent numerical performance for our quantum chemical applications. Also 9 computers (3 clusters with 6 processors each with 1 server) are serving for parallel applications (GAUSSIAN 98 using LINDA) for large molecuar systems (such Si₁₂H₁₅). The major aim of this installation is to provide cheap CPU time for bulky quantum chemical calculations carried out by the group members. Efficient load control over the Linux boxes is achieved by using the Distributed Queueing System (DQS) available freely from the Supercomputer Research Institute at the Florida State University.

Hardware Parallelism & Interconnect Structure

9 computers are connected by 10 Mb/s Ethernet Hub (3Com TP 16C) and 10 other computers (for parallel calculations) are connected by 100 Mb/s Ethernet Hub (3Com TP800). These two hubs are connected with 10/100 automatic switch (3Com Switch400)

 

Hardware Configuration

Dual Pentium II 300/II 400/III 450, Super Micro P6DLE motherboard withAdaptec AHA-2940U PCI Ultrascsi Kit or Super Micro P6DLS motherboard, 256/512 MB RAM, 4.5 GB Seagate Elite ST34572N SCSI hard drive.

 

Installed Softwares

Gaussian 98, Gamess, Molpro, Fortran Compiler, VARIFLEX .

 

For more information regarding this PC Cluster installation, please click the picture to visit Emerson Center at Emory University.