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NetXtreme II User Guide
January 2010
Broadcom Corporation
Page 48 Application Considerations Document ENGSRVT52-CDUM100-R
High-Performance Computing Cluster
Gigabit Ethernet is typically used for the following three purposes in high-performance computing cluster (HPCC)
applications:
• Inter-Process Communications (IPC): For applications that do not require low-latency, high-bandwidth interconnects
(such as Myrinet, InfiniBand), Gigabit Ethernet can be used for communication between the compute nodes.
• I/O: Ethernet can be used for file sharing and serving the data to the compute nodes. This can be done simply using an
NFS server or using parallel file systems such as PVFS.
• Management & Administration: Ethernet is used for out-of-band (ERA) and in-band (OMSA) management of the nodes
in the cluster. It can also be used for job scheduling and monitoring.
In our current HPCC offerings, only one of the on-board adapters is used. If Myrinet or IB is present, this adapter serves I/
O and administration purposes; otherwise, it is also responsible for IPC. In case of an adapter failure, the administrator can
use the Felix package to easily configure adapter 2. Adapter teaming on the host side is neither tested nor supported in
HPCC.
Advanced Features
PXE is used extensively for the deployment of the cluster (installation and recovery of compute nodes). Teaming is typically
not used on the host side and it is not a part of our standard offering. Link aggregation is commonly used between switches,
especially for large configurations. Jumbo frames, although not a part of our standard offering, may provide performance
improvement for some applications due to reduced CPU overhead.