Re: CCL:NT parallel cluster

> >
 > > Almost all network of PC clusters that I read about on the web run
 under
 > > Linux. Is there any particular reason for not choosing NT (lack of
 > > parallel programs perhaps ?).
 >
 Dear Bupendra,
 There are several reasons why NT is not widely used as a cluster OS. The
 first is scalability. While Microsoft would like you to believe that NT
 scales to any number, the fact is that it does not. Research funded by
 Microsoft is ongoing at NCSA to build NT clusters and solve the
 scalability problem.
 The second problem is that of cost. NT licenses are not cheap. Nor are
 multiple licenses for the same. Linux clusters are cheap simply because
 the OS is free.
 A third problem is robustness. The expression "blue screen of death"
 is
 an occurrence which happens many times to NT users. Depending on how
 hard one is pressing a system will determine how often the machine goes
 down. Those problems can be eradicated to a small degree. However, basic
 kernel changes can never be made to NT since you have no access to the
 source. Linux on the other hand allows you full access to the source,
 you can make major kernel modifications readily. Witness dipc which
 requires a kernel recompile to run on most linux clusters - an
 unthinkable option for NT.
 While I do not want to turn this into an anti-Microsoft rant, the
 technology for building robust, effective and cheap computational
 clusters is NOT Microsoft but Linux. To the best of my knowledge active
 development of tools for cluster development/computing is within the
 Linux/Beowulf community. it is my opinion that this is where the cutting
 edge of development will always be.
 Best Regards,
 Mark
 --
 Mark A. Zottola			Alabama Research and Education Network
 119 Rust Research Center	Computer Sciences Corporation
 1801 University Boulevard	VOICE: (205) 934 - 3893
 Birmingham AL 35294		E-MAIL: asnmaz01 ^at^ asc.edu