We’ve got our very own supercomputer
By Mark Tennent in Reader
Posted in Uncategorized on April 3, 2007 at 11:54 am
When Apple released the first G5 Macs in 2003, using the IBM Power 4 CPU’s, aka PPC G5, the first machines were bagged by Virginia Tech to build the world’s third fastest supercomputer running at 10.28 teraflops. We’ve got the same running here even as I type and it’s really easy to set up. Maybe not so fast because we are only using 2 Macs compared with their 1100.
How to make your cluster
Mac OS X Tiger has Xgrid built in already. Take a look in the Sharing Preference Pane and you’ll see it in the list. Unlike adding graphics to Blog columns in ITPro, it’s easy-peasy to set up: a tick box, a scrolling list and a text field. If you use the Mac’s firewall, a few ports will need opening as well, by typing in four numbers. And that’s it. Plus more than one Mac networked together and applications to make use of your new mini super computer.
For this, I’ve used Visualhub, an excellent little video converter that’s cheap and faster than Quicktime Pro as well as having more codecs built in. It is currently compressing a couple of movies I recorded with EyeTV, about 5GB, and converting them to MP4 with H.264 encoding at “Go Nuts” quality.
Using all our power
As the little CPU gauge on both machines show, Visualhub is utilising the entire processing power of our two main Macs, giving me an effective 4.3 GHz twin processor Mac. Very sweet it is too, especially as the Unix Nice facility – which allocates processor use – is throttled back so regular use of either Mac is virtually unaffected. Both machines are running at 70% CPU use for nice with 20% for the System and the remaining 10% for other tasks, unless they need more. Then Nice immediately releases more CPU time. Both Macs are also currently running QuarkXPress, Photoshop, Mail, Safari and various other applications, most of which are at idle.
Administering Xgrid
The final tool used, but not necessary, is the Xgrid Admin application available free from Apple. This shows all connected machines, jobs running and the overview, with a few more tools which have been unnecessary so far.
Never enough Macs when you need them
Next thing to add are more Macs and more applications written to take into account the speed offered by a mini cluster. I would love to play with, say, an office full of Macs, all running together.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I haven’t seen anything about building clusters with Vista.
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