Hello,

I have 10 nodes with identical hardware that I want to use for computations. Any advice on what clustering technique gives better results for that purpose? Beowulf or Mosix?

MOSIX allows for process interuption and rescheduling on a different node without any coding changes. This allows for better load balancing of batched jobs across the cluster. MOSIX requires patching of the linux kernel to do this magic. I don't think it runs on any other flavor of UNIX. There is another software program that does a similar thing as MOSIX, but does not require any kernel changes and runs and many flavors of UNIX and Windows (partially). It is called Condor. http://www.sns.ias.edu/Main/linux/condor/
MOSIX and Condor work well it you have many independent jobs that you what to batch run on a cluster.
If you are trying to do complex computions, such a matrix inversion, finite element anlyzes, then MOSIX nor Condor is what you want. You need to compile you programs to using PVM or MPI.
PVM aka Private Virtual Machine requires you to link to libraries and run you progam under a PVH shell. MPI aka Message Passing Interface requires you to link the the MPI libraries, but you don't need to run the program under an special shell. I have been told that MPI is the more modern approach. For what that is worth.
Here are some usefull links.
http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-04/extreme_01.html
http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-10/extreme_01.html
http://www.linux-mag.com/2002-06/extreme_01.html
Hope this helps.
I am curriuos. What are you planning to do with this cluster?
Gerard

Hi g-rod,

Thanks for the informative response. We are building this cluster for calculations. After doing more research I came to the same conclusion about Mosix - nifty but not what we need in this case. After doing more requirements gathering I found the users needed MPI so that pretty much determined the direction of the cluster implementation.

Thanks again, and those links are very informative.

Hi glock27linux and g-rod,

I'm allso looking around for a clustering tool. The intention is to do Finete Element Analyses.

I'm running Slackware and consider the use of Wareulf, Oscar or Mosix.

Please let me know why MOSIX noy is suitable for numerical crunching?

Yours
/tungsten

as per g-rod's informative response, openMoxix moves batch jobs among clustered boxes so individual jobs necessarily fit in one box. FEM is typically done with MPI since the code spans the memory space of multiple boxes and typically exceeds the maximum memory size of available workstations. if your mesh fits in the memory space of one box, you don't really _need_ clustering, just vary calculation parameters on different boxes. in this case openMosix is a convenient batch-job manager within your computer structure.

hi ,

y dont u go4 OSCAR ...i have bin using it for my 10 -node linux cluster.

also ...ran... mpi programs ... (parallel conjugate gradient..if u know about this)

its pretty good for starters.

try out

http://oscar.sf.net