2 September 2008
Cluster Build-Out, 2008
Posted by brs under: Uncategorized .
See below the fold!
Our latest and greatest project was the construction of a 120 node beowulf cluster paid for by a National Science Foundation grant. Each node, a SunFire x4150, contains two Quad-Core Xeon X5460s, 16GB of RAM, and is connected via InfiniBand. Full specifications are provided below. The project involved a number of preliminary steps not the least of which was finding a suitable data center. Our 12′x40′x10′ cube was no longer sufficient for running new hardware (and is, arguably, insufficient for what’s currently running in it!). Luckily, the Central Florida Regional Data Center in the SVC building was the perfect place for this new system. In the process of renovation and having raised floors, this would be the perfect place to jack in some more power and feed in some water for cooling.
To keep costs down for our HVAC needs, we went with InRow APC units. Since USF sports a central chilled water facility, it was simply a matter of running some pipes. The units themselves book-end the cluster and there is one between each rack.
Here are some preliminary photos of the work.
Installing Chilled Water Pipes
APC InRow RC Units
Electrical Panel Install
This is one completed rack
More to come soon!
One Comment so far...
chow Says:
16 October 2008 at 10:21 pm.
Cool, Nice to see some pics of that new server cluster. I like to think I helped a little with the “physical” computing aspect of the project.. =)
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