CoPs
Clusters
of PCs

Project overview

For this experimental project in computer systems we are looking for the optimal structure, the best efficiency and the highest performance of low level system-software for communication in parallel- and distributed systems. In particular we are investigating a network of PCs with serveral different high speed interconnects (GigabitEthernet, SCI and Myrinet). Our experimental testbed under construction is built from commodity components such as DELL PPro/PII PCs and gigabit/s networking adapters connected over a PCI bus. It is a particular challenge to keep the hardware mainstream enough to benefit from the terrific cost/performance ratios seen in todays PC markets, but to do it in a way, that the characteristics of the systems are good enough to make a distributed system with parallelism worthwhile.

Project members

• Thomas M. Stricker , Assistant Professor, thomas.stricker@inf.ethz.ch
• Christian Kurmann , Ph.D. student, christian.kurmann_at_inf.ethz.ch
• Michela Taufer , Ph.D. student, michela.taufer@inf.ethz.ch
• Felix Rauch , Ph.D. student, felix.rauch@inf.ethz.ch

Current (future) projects in

• Distributed Object Packages for CoPs and their performance (CORBA and other Frameworks).
  Contact: Christan Kurmann.
• Database Middleware for CoPs and its performance.
  Contact: Michela Taufer.
• Network File Systems for CoPs.
  Contact: Felix Rauch.

Past projects in

• Performance characterization and modelling for a scientific application (Opal) on Cray J90 and Clusters of PCs.
  Contact: Michela Taufer. Published in Supercomputing 98.
• A comparative study of Gigabit Networking Technologies for PCI bus based PCs.
  Contact: Christan Kurmann. Published in SCI Europe 98.

Publications about

• Papers in refereed conferences and journals
• Technical reports

Software related to

• ECT memperf - Extended Copy Transfer Characterization (Memory Performance Characterization Toolkit and Benchmark)
• Patagonia CloneSys - A Tool to Install Multi-Boot Environments

Fast CoPs , slow CoPs, good CoPs, bad CoPs .... our prototypes and our project facilities

Our Lab once had a beautiful view before remodelling of the "attic" started - now it is across the hall from coffee and donuts (which keep CoPs alive)...

• Hardware- and Software-Infrastructure of our Clusters of PCs.

Links to Related Projects

• CESDIS Beowulf Project
• U-Net: A User-Level Network Interface Architecture, Cornell University
• Illinois Fast Messages (FM), Urbana-Champaign
• The TreadMarks Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) System, Rice University, Texas
• Scintilla Cluster Research, UC Santa Barbara
• SCI Compute Cluster at PC2, Uni Paderborn
• ETH Switcherland
• ETH EasyNet

ETH Zürich: Department of Computer Science
Last Update: August, 2001,
Hrsg. Thomas Stricker,< thomas.stricker@inf.ethz.ch>