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Highlights
- Reduces time and resources necessary to deploy Linux® clusters
- Provides single point-of-control to simplify management and enhance cluster availability
- Offers a highly scalable solution for high-performance or commercial computing workloads and server consolidation
Outstanding price/performance
Clustering has always offered significant price/performance advantages for many high-performance workloads. By harnessing low-cost servers and Open Source software, Linux clusters further extend those advantages.
Today, many organizations are building their own Linux clusters using commodity hardware, standard interconnects and networking technology, Open Source software and inhouse or third-party applications. In doing so, they often discover that considerable resources must be dedicated to assemble, integrate, test, manage and support the cluster. As such, these organizations often experience many of the problems frequently encountered during product development.
Leveraging its extensive experience with clustered UNIX® computers, IBM has developed the IBM eServer Cluster 1300 to address each of these challenges. Using advanced Intel® processor-based server nodes, proven cluster management software (Red Hat Linux from Red Hat, Inc.) and optional high-speed interconnects, the Cluster 1300 brings together the best of IBM and third-party technology. As a result, the installation of a Linux cluster is greatly accelerated and its support greatly simplified.
The Cluster 1300 is an ideal solution for industrial, governmental and educational organizations requiring excellent price/performance for handling High Performance Computing (HPC) workloads. It is also an excellent choice for applications such as Web serving and collaboration or any situation requiring horizontal scaling.
A comprehensive solution
Customers can order the Cluster 1300 as an integrated offering. It is easy to configure and helps businesses deploy applications rapidly. After the configuration is selected, IBM assembles and tests the cluster to ensure that the system performs as specified. A single serial number is assigned to the entire cluster with IBM acting as a single point-of-contact for all service-related issues 1.
By reducing time and resources for researching, assembling, integrating, testing and tuning a Linux cluster, the Cluster 1300 can help an organization speed time-to-production when deploying Linux applications. In addition, more servers can be added at any time to handle increasing workloads, consolidate more servers or add new applications.
IBM provides installation support for the Cluster 1300. For even higher levels of support, the optional SupportLine for Linux Clusters is staffed by experts who understand the entire cluster environment, not just individual components. This includes Linux, CSM for Linux and the General Parallel File System (GPFS) for Linux.
To further simplify the deployment effort, IBM can provide project management support to coordinate all aspects of delivery and installation, including hardware and software setup services. Attractive financing and leasing terms are also available.
High-performance cluster management
IBM offers Cluster Systems Management (CSM), which is advanced cluster management software that allows a cluster of Intel processor-based Linux systems to be managed from a single point-of-control. This simplifies the management of the cluster and enables it to scale up easily, thus helping to improve the efficiency of the system administrator. CSM includes an infrastructure that monitors both hardware and software events, triggering automated recovery action when appropriate. The highly reliable infrastructure and event monitoring capabilities of CSM help ensure that problems are detected and resolved quickly, thereby enhancing availability of the cluster.
CSM for Linux is based on the architecture and design of the IBM Parallel System Support Programs for AIX® software product, which has been deployed on the IBM RS/6000®SP™—one of the world's most popular supercomputers.
CSM contains several components designed to make managing a Linux cluster easier:
- Distributed management server: provides a persistent repository of information about each node in the cluster, and maintains the status of each node.
- Event response resource manager: provides the ability to run commands or scripts in response to user-defined events. A rich set of predefined conditions and responses are provided. Many resources can be monitored, including nodes, adapters, file systems and processes.
- Remote hardware control: utilizes the integrated systems management processor in Cluster 1300 nodes. This enables the administrator to remotely reset or power the node on or off.
- Configuration file management: provides a repository for files that are common between the nodes. CSM will synchronize changes to configuration files across the cluster.
- Distributed shell: allows commands or scripts to be run remotely on all nodes in the cluster with options for combining output from multiple servers. Distributed command execution manager is an optional graphical user interface that integrates with the distributed shell, allowing easier management of nodes and node groups.
CSM provides node grouping, which is a convenient way to apply different rules to subsets of servers in the cluster. This can be an important consideration when supporting the consolidation of multiple applications on the cluster.
With node grouping, administrative commands can be applied to individual nodes, the entire cluster as a unit, or to a specific group of nodes defined by the administrator.
By providing a single point-of-control for a cluster, CSM can dramatically simplify total systems management, thereby enabling a cost-effective approach to server consolidation solutions. By allowing scripts to run in response to common occurrences, CSM can help increase cluster availability.
Advanced server technology
The Cluster 1300 is based on exclusive X-Architecture— technology from IBM, which incorporates some of the availability features of the IBM eServer zSeries— 900 server and the scalability features of IBM eServer pSeries— systems. As such, Cluster 1300 industry standard Intel processor-based servers are designed to provide enterprise-inspired power, scalability, control and service at very attractive prices.
Cluster 1300 nodes include unique Cable Chaining Technology, which is designed to significantly reduce the number of cables needed in each system, thereby helping to speed upgrades while lowering costs. In addition, an integrated systems management processor enables CSM to remotely manage the system nodes for enhanced server productivity.
Through the use of CSM commands, system administrators can specify which events to monitor and actions to take in the event of memory, processor, hard drive, fan or power issues. As a result, these commands help achieve peak performance and system availability.
Standard configurations of the Cluster 1300 include a management node, four to 128 cluster nodes and up to eight storage nodes that provide shared file storage. A special order process is available for organizations requiring larger or other non-standard configurations. All nodes run Red Hat Linux.
Additionally, there are two special single frame solutions available offering a smaller footprint and lower cost. One of these solutions scales from four to eight nodes while the other is a fixed 16-node configuration.
Each Cluster 1300 also includes a management Ethernet VLAN for secure internode communications, a cluster Ethernet VLAN for application internode communication and a terminal server network, which allows for remote console capability. The cluster comes standard with one 10/100Mbps Ethernet switch, supporting up to 48 connections.
Cluster nodes can be configured with either single or dual Intel Pentium® III processors, with 128MB to 4GB of memory. Each cluster node has either one or two SCSI disk drives for a total of 18GB to 147.8GB of disk storage per node. The management node also has dual Intel Pentium III processors, from 256MB to 4GB of memory, up to six 18GB, 36GB or 72GB hard drives and the appropriate adapter cards for cluster management.
Additional disk storage is available through the use of optional storage nodes, which allow additional file system storage to be configured. For increased capacity, these nodes can be configured to support externally attached Fibre Channel RAID storage subsystems. For high availability, they can be configured to provide redundant paths to all data. While the standard configuration supports up to eight storage nodes, larger data storage configurations are available by special order.
A minimum of one Keyboard/Video/Mouse (KVM) switch is required with the system. Remote console support is provided through the terminal server.
Expanding possibilities
The Cluster 1300 offers a number of optional components to meet the specific computing requirements of different organizations, including a choice of interconnect technologies. In addition to standard 10/100Mbps Ethernet, organizations can select Myrinet2000—scalable interconnect technology from Myricom, Inc.
Myrinet is a cost-effective, high-performance packet communication and switching technology that has been widely used in Linux operating system-based clusters. It is particularly well suited for high-performance or high-availability clustering.
Companies can also take advantage of GPFS for Linux. GPFS is a high-performance, scalable shared-disk file system that is designed to provide fast data access from all nodes in a Linux cluster environment. Parallel applications running across multiple nodes of the cluster as well as serial applications running on a single node can readily access shared files using standard UNIX file system interfaces. Furthermore, GPFS can be configured for failover from both disk and server malfunctions.
In short, GPFS for Linux offers world class performance, scalability and availability for file systems. It scales with the size of the Linux cluster while providing NFS export capabilities outside the cluster.
Other optional cluster components include IBM FAStT200 storage subsystems with the FAStT EXP500 expansion unit. Fiber Array Storage Technology provides highly reliable data storage for business-critical applications that require high-speed transfer and large amounts of data.
Summary
Creating a computing infrastructure is an exercise in balancing price and performance to deliver the appropriate solution for any given task.
For some high-performance workloads, the most appropriate solution is clustering. By harnessing the power of many servers in parallel, it is possible to solve computationally intense problems with an excellent price/performance ratio. Clustering can also be an excellent approach for consolidating multiple workloads, which can provide enhanced manageability and high availability.
The advent of Linux has made it possible to build powerful clustered systems using affordable, Intel processor-based hardware. It also allows organizations to tap into the growing skill base and contributions of the Open Source community.
The IBM eServer Cluster 1300 is designed to provide a pre-configured, pre-installed and pre-tested solution that greatly simplifies and speeds deployment of a Linux cluster. IBM provides a single point-of-contact for the entire cluster, not just individual components, thus reducing risk for deployment of a Linux cluster solution 1 .
For any organization looking for the economic advantages of deploying a Linux cluster, but concerned about the time and technical resources necessary, the Cluster 1300 is the right choice.
For more information
To learn more about the IBM eServer Cluster 1300, contact your IBM marketing representative or IBM Business Partner or visit the following Websites:
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2002
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Published in the United States of America
06-02
All Rights Reserved
References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in every country in which IBM operates. Consult your local IBM business contact for information on the products, features and services available in your area.
IBM, the IBM logo, the e-business logo, AIX, pSeries, RS/6000, SP, X-Architecture, xSeries and zSeries are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation.
Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective companies.
IBM hardware products are manufactured from new parts, or new and used parts. Regardless, our warranty terms apply.
This equipment is subject to all applicable FCC rules and will comply with them upon delivery.
Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from the suppliers of those products. Questions concerning those products should be directed to those suppliers.
All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
1 Non-IBM components are subject to the manufacturer's warranty, and terms and conditions. Although IBM will simplify the reporting of service issues for the Cluster 1300 by receiving and facilitating all service requests for this offering, any warranty claim for non-IBM products will be the responsibility of the non-IBM manufacturer.
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