RE: [cobalt-users] seti@home on qube

[Rodolfo Paiz <rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> hmmm  seems I'm gonna have to find another way to clock it then.

Let me get this straight: all you want is to benchmark the performance of a
cluster of Qubes. Yes? Then, what kind of performance? If only
floating-point or similar, then the BogoMIPS score is alread an indicator.
Build a script that calculates the value of pi (3.14159...), test it on one
Qube, reference it to 250 BogoMIPS (or whatever your Qube reports when it
boots, then test it on the cluster.

Alternately, if you want to benchmark web-server performance (which seems
more logical, else you'd be clustering other machines but not a Qube), then
check out ZDnet's benchmark tests. They have WebBench and other tests for
servers, since they test them regularly.

Finally, it does seem as though someone earlier was right: if you're going
to go to the trouble of clustering, which is certainly not supported "out of
the box" by the Qube, and Qubes (large ones) do cost around $1500...
wouldn't you be far better off building a cluster out of really nice $1500
machines and running straight Red Hat with Beowulf clustering?

Let me see... $1500 per machine, using top-shelf components:

Mini-Tower Case ($55)
3.5" Floppy Drive ($15)
ASUS K7V Motherboard ($150)
AMD Athlon 700 MHz ($230)
Crucial Tech. 128 MB PC-133 SDRAM ($125)
Maxtor DiamondMax 40GB UDMA/66 ($250)
Kenwood TrueX 52x CD-ROM UDMA/66 ($75)
Matrox G400 16MB AGP Video ($100)
3Com 3C905 Fast Etherlink XL 10/100 Mbps ($100)

That's $1100 total per machine, for a serious machine. Multiply by four, get
$4400. If anything, I'm high on the prices. Now, add one of the following:

Cybex Switchdesk 4-port KVM switch ($250)
Iiyama VisionMaster Pro 450 19" Monitor ($365)
Microsoft Natural Keyboard ($20)
Microsoft IntelliMouse ($15)
KVM Cables, 4 sets ($100)
Anthrocart for four PC's plus workstation for 1 human ($250)
Ergonomic desk chair ($200)
Linksys 8-port 10/100 Workgroup Switch ($100)
Assorted network and other cables ($60)

This is a total of $4400 + $1360 = $5760. Divide by four, get $1440 per box.
Well under budget. If we stick to an approximate 1 BogoMIPS = 1 MHz of
PIII/Athlon type CPU, then you should have something pretty close to 2,800
BogoMIPS available in this four-node cluster. Four Qubes, on the other hand,
will get you about 1,000 BogoMIPS.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Let us know what you feel about all this, and
what your experiment is about, and how it goes, OK? Now I'm curious...

------
Rodolfo J. Paiz
rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>