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    Hi there;

    Can someone point me to the minimum specs for a compute node in an HPC cluster.   Does the node have to have a certain processor;  A certain amount of ram?  Do all the compute nodes have to be the same specs?

    I can find specs for the Head node but not the computer nodes.   I realize that the more powerfull the compute nodes then the more powerful the cluster will be.

    Can compute nodes be added over time?   Say add 10 nodes initially then add a node or two here and there as they become available.

    Every year the school I work for discards several 5 year old computers.   Most of which go to charity or other schools.   But I'm thinking of using some of them to build a cluster.   Most of them are old Celerons with 512 MB of ram.

    Thanks for any and all comments
    WD
    Friday, May 22, 2009 3:43 PM

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    Hey Doc, the min requirements listed at http://www.microsoft.com/hpc/en/us/system-requirements.aspx are for both compute / head nodes.

    512 megs of ram, a 50 gig hard drive, and an x64 processor are required to get the Windows Server 2008 x64 operating system up and running.

    So, those machiens may or may not work depending on which processor they have. (The Celeron line was originally x86, but I'm pretty sure they did release some x64 versions.

    But keep in mind that minimum requirements are the minimum to get things installed and working at all. If you only have 512 megs you aren't going to have very good performance on your compute nodes, because the operating system is goign to be consuming most of your ram so you'll be paging all the time.

    As for adding nodes over time, absolutely that is fully supported and pretty easy.
    • Proposed as answer by Don Pattee Friday, May 22, 2009 6:16 PM
    • Marked as answer by parmita mehta Wednesday, June 3, 2009 6:48 PM
    Friday, May 22, 2009 6:16 PM

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    Hey Doc, the min requirements listed at http://www.microsoft.com/hpc/en/us/system-requirements.aspx are for both compute / head nodes.

    512 megs of ram, a 50 gig hard drive, and an x64 processor are required to get the Windows Server 2008 x64 operating system up and running.

    So, those machiens may or may not work depending on which processor they have. (The Celeron line was originally x86, but I'm pretty sure they did release some x64 versions.

    But keep in mind that minimum requirements are the minimum to get things installed and working at all. If you only have 512 megs you aren't going to have very good performance on your compute nodes, because the operating system is goign to be consuming most of your ram so you'll be paging all the time.

    As for adding nodes over time, absolutely that is fully supported and pretty easy.
    • Proposed as answer by Don Pattee Friday, May 22, 2009 6:16 PM
    • Marked as answer by parmita mehta Wednesday, June 3, 2009 6:48 PM
    Friday, May 22, 2009 6:16 PM
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    Hey Thanks a bunch for that info;

    Looks like it will be a couple years before I can try this, we won't be discarding 64bit processors till then.

    W
    Friday, May 22, 2009 6:45 PM