Cluster Installation Methods

Do It Yourself

• Reasons to do it
  1. You are setting up a very small (~4 machines) test cluster
  2. You cannot overwrite the hard drives on your machines
  3. You want to install only the packages you really need
  4. You want to learn what the large cluster install packages are doing behind the scenes
• Reasons not to do it
  1. You are operating a large professional cluster
  2. You have little experience with UNIX systems

When talking to people who first learn of the different cluster installation packages, many people are surprised to find out that they could, if they wanted to, just install the few key packages the need to use.

Installing and setting up a cluster without any cluster installation tools can be very frustrating for a large working cluster, but for a small cluster may actually be the easier way to go.

Examples

Do-it-yourself clusters are as varied as they are numerous, but here is a checklist of a few crucial issues.

Network and CD Bootable Clusters

• Reasons to do it
  1. You cannot overwrite the hard drives on your machines
  2. You need a simple method of cluster installation

Examples

BCCD

thinOSCAR

Cluster Installation Packages

• Reasons to do it
  1. You are operating a large professional clusters
• Reasons not to do it
  1. You have restrictions on software installation
  2. You have data on the hard drives which cannot be removed
  3. You have restrictions on the operating system you can use on the machines

Examples

OSCAR

Rocks