[Bioclusters] Operating system choice.

[Jeff Layton]

David,

   I haven't seen an OS without it's quirks. I haven't found one I
_really like_ yet. With that said, there are some tools that can
help with rpms. Have you head of yum? (linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/).
It can handle all of the dependency problems that you might have.
Also, rather than spend money on a RH product, think about some
of the community supported _recompiles_ of RHEL. For example,
cAos (www.caosity.org). Most of the people putting it together
are cluster people. So, you get a RH based OS with a cluster spin
on it.
   Just a couple of words of advice. We used to have a head node
that used SAN attached storage. We had no end of problems with it.
We have the box vendor (who also supported the OS) and the SAN
folks out many times and it was never fixed. We ended up sticking
in a NAS box in the cluster and told the users to copy their data off
the box and onto a SAN attached server. This has worked out infinitely
better.
   As for the Cluster distribution, I recommend Warewulf
(warewulf-cluster.org). It can do the PXE/Etherboot stuff and is very
flexible. Take a look, ask some questions, it might be what you're
looing for.

Good Luck!

Jeff

> Good evening everyone,
>
> I'm in the process of building a compute farm and my main concern is 
> with the Operating System choice.
>
> As a unix systems admin, I'm not a big fan of Red Hat linux products 
> (or anything RPM based for that matter), because of dependency 
> problems inherent to RPM. I would prefer to go with Debian GNU/Linux 
> or with FreeBSD. Unfortunately, my Upper Management team thinks Linux 
> and Red Hat are identical.
>
> I thus face two barriers:
>
> a) The OS needs to be compatible with Platform LSF and Veritas 
> NetBackup client.
>
> b) I need proper arguments to demonstrate to Upper Management why we 
> should NOT use Red Hat.
>
> Therefore,
>
> Does anyone have experience with LSF/NetBackup on Debian or FreeBSD?
>
> Could someone help me put together a "sales pitch" for either Debian 
> or FreeBSD? Otherwise, the OS choice will be a business choice and not 
> a technical/systems administration choice. Hence I'll be "stuck" with 
> it...
>
> Here are some details or the environment:
>
> -I have 5+ years experience running Solaris, Debian, FreeBSD and Red 
> Hat machines.
> -This compute farm will be running on x86 architecture, the Intel Xeon 
> CPU.
> -Gigabit ethernet will be used for interconnect, nothing fancy here.
> -Master node will be connected to a SAN and will be backed-up by 
> Veritas NetBackup.
> -Compute nodes will boot via PXE/Etherboot (undecided yet) and mount 
> their kernel via NFS. A local drive will be there for swap.
>
> -The applications running on this compute farm are in-house algorithms 
> which don't use MPI nor PVM.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> David
>
> -- 
> David Robillard
> UNIX systems administrator
> david.robillard@galileogenomics.com
> +1 514 270 3991 x285
> Galileo Genomics
> _______________________________________________
> Bioclusters maillist  -  Bioclusters@bioinformatics.org
> https://bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/bioclusters
>


-- 
Dr. Jeff Layton
Aerodynamics and CFD
Lockheed-Martin Aeronautical Company - Marietta