High Performance Linux Clusters with OSCAR, Rocks, OpenMosix, and MPI [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

2.1 Design Steps

Designing a cluster entails four sets of
design decisions. You should:

Determine the overall mission for your cluster.

Select a general architecture for your cluster.

Select the operating system, cluster software, and other system
software you will use.

Select the hardware for the cluster.

While each of these tasks, in part, depends on the others, the first
step is crucial. If at all possible, the cluster's
mission should drive all other design decisions. At the very least,
the other design decisions must be made in the context of the
cluster's mission and be consistent with it.

Selecting the hardware should be the final step in the design, but
often you won't have as much choice as you would
like. A number of constraints may drive you to select the hardware
early in the design process. The most obvious is the need to use
recycled hardware or similar budget constraints. Chapter 3 describes hardware consideration is greater
detail.