how to make a grid of computers...

[i-unit123]

hey,

i have a few (3), fairly recent (2005-2006) mac computers. I have one macbook pro, one mac mini, and a imac core duo- all of the intel persuasion. i was wondreing if, with a network cable, i can create a grid and make the computers work together to do things? sorry if this is a dumb question, but i was trying to convert a big batch of videos, and i was wondering if i could split the work up this way. if not between 3, then at least 2 comps, with a net cable? thanks a lot, and sorry if this is a dumb question!

 

[Monkaaay]

The biggest issue you'll have is the software, not the hardware. You'd need to find a "grid capable" piece of software that can distribute its processes over multiple nodes.

 

[i-unit123]

is there any free software for this

no biggie if there isnt, i was just curious.

 

[someguy]

I'm no networking guru, but wouldn't the bottleneck created by this type of setup negate the overall purpose of improving speed?

 

[slooksterPSV]

Mac OS X's XGrid helps to do the Multi-computer (processing farm). Or Nodal Grid Processing. Software for this is very scarce, that's why most have to develop it themselves. The only piece of software that does this is Apple's movie compression entity that comes with like Final Cut Pro or that, its a compression program. Otherwise you have to develop your own software to do these things. Sorry, I'd probably try searching sourceforge.net for some free/opensource software that handles tasks like this.

 

[Monkaaay]

I'm no networking guru, but wouldn't the bottleneck created by this type of setup negate the overall purpose of improving speed?

And what bottleneck are you speaking of?

 

[slooksterPSV]

I'm no networking guru, but wouldn't the bottleneck created by this type of setup negate the overall purpose of improving speed?

oh heck no, actually this is a very well-thought-out use, especially if no-one will be using that computer for a while. It doesn't send the actual data, just the instructions to process, for example, if I were having 3 computers work on a piece of a calculus problem such as:
The integral of (z^x + 15y) dx on the interval from -y to z, it could say, computer 1 work from -50 to 0, computer 2 work from 0 to 50 and computer 3 work from 50 to 100
Then it'd return the results whether it be an array or just a single piece of data.

 

[someguy]

And what bottleneck are you speaking of?

Again, not a networking guru, but it just seems like sending that much data over a network would be a little on the slow side. I'm assuming this isn't true at all seeing as how I'm the only one mentioning this, though.

 

[slooksterPSV]

Here's a screenshot of me trying to do that equation in Grapher:
--BTW A great use for XGrid, if they'd support it, is Adobe Programs like Photoshop, Flash, etc.

Networking - on 100Mbps, that'd be fine - on 1000Mbps, that wouldn't create any sort of bottleneck unless you had heavy heavy transfers and thousands upon thousands of computers working together on one problem. The instructions are relatively bytes and kilobytes

 

[someguy]

Networking - on 100Mbps, that'd be fine - on 1000Mbps, that wouldn't create any sort of bottleneck unless you had heavy heavy transfers and thousands upon thousands of computers working together on one problem. The instructions are relatively bytes and kilobytes

I see, thanks for that bit of info!

 

[RichP]

Here's a screenshot of me trying to do that equation in Grapher:
--BTW A great use for XGrid, if they'd support it, is Adobe Programs like Photoshop, Flash, etc.

Whhaha! Imagine that, a little cluster of minis to do our pshop bidding!

 

[slooksterPSV]

Whhaha! Imagine that, a little cluster of minis to do our pshop bidding!

Last year in HS, that's what we wanted to do with the G5's, set all of them up on XGrid, have the server be the controller and execute photoshop and illustrator commands (blur, etc.) so it didn't take so long.
Could you imagine a grid for iDVD or iMovie? Damn that'd be awesome!

 

[screensaver400]

Beowulf Clusters

A Beowulf cluster sounds like what you want. Its a bit advanced to setup, but the results will probably be nice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_cluster

http://www.stat.ucla.edu/computing/clusters/deployment.php

 

[steelfist]

it would be intresting if somebody can imitate virginia tech's supercomputers at a smaller scale of around 5 computers.

i posted a thread about this, and there's no solution that i recieved.

 

[superbovine]

Last year in HS, that's what we wanted to do with the G5's, set all of them up on XGrid, have the server be the controller and execute photoshop and illustrator commands (blur, etc.) so it didn't take so long.
Could you imagine a grid for iDVD or iMovie? Damn that'd be awesome!

you'd get more practical benefit out of multi core multi processor systems (in a small business)

 

[Monkaaay]

it would be intresting if somebody can imitate virginia tech's supercomputers at a smaller scale of around 5 computers.

i posted a thread about this, and there's no solution that i recieved.

I wonder what configuration that cluster exists in now. They should have moved to dual core Mini machines. Think of the power, heat, and space reductions...

 

[superbovine]

it would be intresting if somebody can imitate virginia tech's supercomputers at a smaller scale of around 5 computers.

i posted a thread about this, and there's no solution that i recieved.

you can buy 4 x 1 U rackmount servers running bsd (os x is a variant of freebsd) setup to run a "mini super computer" type situation.

If you are looking for 4-5 box clusters, I think you'd should look commercial blade servers as well. generally they are 4-8 blades servers running on a fiber optic network. generally they aren't used for "super computer" type calculation but they are used for different type of clustering.

 

[mopppish]

Logic Pro 7.2 has a node function in which one computer acts as the host and spreads processing duties for audio effects and software instruments out to the slave computers.

 

[simie]

Try Cluster 3.0 avialable for Windows - OSX - Linux http://bonsai.ims.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~mdehoon/software/cluster/software.htm