Idea: Anandtech Cluster

[Philippart]

While browsing through some team forums (Planet3Dnow!, Swissteam.net, ...) I noticed that a number of teams have a team cluster:
This cluster is based on regular PCs which crunch for the team. Based on for instance a monthly poll, the whole team chooses what to crunch.

What we need:
- a location (somebody who'd like to operate them, with preferably cheap electricity costs)
- hardware donations (the whole cluster is based on donations from our team members)
- monetary donations (to pay the electricity bill)

Some additional ideas:
- the computers should be visible so everybody can track for instance their donated CPUs.
- the computers should be managed through an account manager like BAM!, both the operator and TAC (Team AnandTech Committee) should have the username+password
- the monetary donations should be in at least 3 month in advance, to give the operator some security

So, what do you think?

(I have a bunch of (recent-semi recent) hardware lying around for a possible cluster)

EDIT: NEURODOG would volunteer the location <--- Thank you!

 

[Shortass]

Interesting.

 

[Neurodog]

I would be interested. But I would prefer to give money ~$20 and have some strong crunchers. I wouldn't want 5-10 PC's that would consume more power then 1 or 2 quads and underperforming also.

Since I probably live where electricity is at the lowers(not including Alberta, Canada) at about 5cent/KWh, I would volunteer to house the equipement and I could provide the cases as that would be the most expensive part to ship.

 

[Foxery]

There is a roaming group of AT users who do something like this. TAS I think? (Not sure what it stands for.) They join up with an existing TeAm for a month per project to boost our stats.

 

[Philippart]

I know, I'm a member of TAS (TeAm AnandTech Sentinel). But my idea was to have a global Anandtech cluster, everybody has a chance to choose where the cruncing power goes and if many people donate the hardware they have lying around, it will still produce a lot of crunching power instead of just catching dust.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: Philippart
I know, I'm a member of TAS (TeAm AnandTech Sentinel). But my idea was to have a global Anandtech cluster, everybody has a chance to choose where the cruncing power goes and if many people donate the hardware they have lying around, it will still produce a lot of crunching power instead of just catching dust.

I think it's a great idea. We could also use it for a cache of hardware should someone need a part (like caferace's T.H.E. Topic @ teamanandtech). If we combined our resources (stick of RAM here, processor there) as well as added some funds, we could likely add a decent quad core that none of us would be able to purchase as individuals.

We would just have to decide on what to call the account on which it crunches (sounds like a contest with vote to me). We could also possibly tie in a thing where one or more machines crunch for the belt winner, as an added bonus to holding the lovely belt?

 

[Philippart]

that sounds great, it's like a hardware community haha ; the account name is probably the smallest issue

 

[networkman]

I like the idea - count me in!

 

[Alyx]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo

We would just have to decide on what to call the account on which it crunches (sounds like a contest with vote to me).

It could crunch under the TAC account probably. I think its a great idea and I've got a few spare parts I could send as well.

 

[PCTC2]

I'm all in for it. If you guys want to run two, I can run a smaller secondary cluster at my job. I can only have 2 towers, but if people would like to run some crunchers in 1U short(not EATX) rackmount cases, then I could run plenty. They wouldn't be completely visible but I could set something up so you could track each one on a separate site. I could work on setting up a way for them to be visible. So far I can only allow access to computers running Linux via SSH. I'm sure I could do some port forwarding. It's free electricity but it would only be for the next 4 years (then I'm moving on to a new job). I will not get in trouble as my boss supports these kinds of projects. Then I could pull it over to my house and I wouldn't mind paying a little extra on the electricity bills if people would chip in a small amount every month (set up a donation cycle?) and then the computers could be visible and still would be on the site for quick tracking. I'm in the process of building 3 new computers to crunch anyways so I'm up for it.

BTW, my location is San Diego, CA

EDIT: We could call the clusters "TADC2" => TeAm Anandtech Distributed Computing Center
And the group could be "TA2" => TeAm Anandtech Alliance or something.

 

[petrusbroder]

I like the idea a lot and can donate some hardware: CD-roms, graphics cards, RAM, PSUs, etc. As yet no CPUs and Mobos ...

 

[Insidious]

It sounds like a fun idea and I'm guessing this is just the place to find a bunch of people who can pull it off.

I will cheer for you and probably haunt your threads with a smiley or two, but financial limitations will prevent me from really joining in except for a very small donation ($)

-Sid

 

[Rudy Toody]

I have a huge box of old floppie drives that I would love to send to Cananda!

 

[caferace]

I have lots of IDE HDD drives. LOTS. 40Gb and bigger....

-jim

 

[Coquito]

This was brought up a couple of years ago & I think donations made their rounds & we ended up with a few ugly machines running in someone's basement. Unless one of us wins the lotto, or a bunch of us live in one central location to deploy & babysit, I think we're better off just saving our scratch.

 

[compudog]

I have some hardware available. I'll work up a list and post it.

 

[networkman]

The main issues I see are electricity cost and administration.

Ideally, someone located in a business or industrial sector with cheaper electric rates would probably be ideal, and that same someone(or someones) being able to coordinate the donations with our members so that we don't end up with a ton of miscellaneous parts that sit in a pile.

One of the up-front questions I have is, do we want this to be a complete "hodge-podge" of donated parts, or do we want to agree as a TeAm to set some kind of a minimum range of equipment? I for one don't care about the whole AMD vs Intel debate, as I use both kinds, but being able to agree on some minimum level of equipment would help in calculating electricity costs as well as technical issues.

 

[Philippart]

That sounds like a good idea networkman:
We should find a minimum in efficiency/power usage to avoid ending up with 20 Pentium I haha

I could coordinate the hardware donations with an ongoing updated list of parts in order to fit CPUs with motherboards with RAM, ...

 

[TurtleBlue]

The power cost would not deter me since where I live the Co-op has Maintenance, Gas & Electricity in one SET amount which does not fluctuate. We will also be going on-line with our own Co-Gen power plant so if a black out occurs you would see us as one of those places that is still shining brightly in a sea of blackness on the news-tube.

I currently have 4 boxes in my living room crunching away at F@H (which my better half and I do not use as a living room (currently). Don't know how many more set-ups I could install before tripping the circuit breaker! or if my wife would draw the line if she sees a tower of motherboards near the couch.

There was a post some time ago about home-made farms (during the SETI Classic heydays). Some of them looked pretty neat. There was one in particular which may address the needs of this post. One person worked at a school (high school?) and was allowed, in addition to setting up a server base for the school, to use the same space to crunch with other boxes using the space & power near the school's servers.

TurtleBlue

 

[PCTC2]

I'd be willing to coordinate a cluster. If everyone PMed me with what parts they had or what money they could spare, I could probably have up to 20 computers. The first round of monetary donations would go to buying rack-mount cases for my rails (that have nothing on them) but I could still fit about 4-6 towers if someone had extra cases. As long as people wouldn't mind sending $5 here or there for electricity, I think we could accomplish this.

Otherwise, I'd be willing to donate some parts if someone else has a better situation.

EDIT: I believe the minimum part should be at least a P4 1.4GHz or higher.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: PCTC2
I'd be willing to coordinate a cluster. If everyone PMed me with what parts they had or what money they could spare, I could probably have up to 20 computers. The first round of monetary donations would go to buying rack-mount cases for my rails (that have nothing on them) but I could still fit about 4-6 towers if someone had extra cases. As long as people wouldn't mind sending $5 here or there for electricity, I think we could accomplish this.

Otherwise, I'd be willing to donate some parts if someone else has a better situation.

EDIT: I believe the minimum part should be at least a P4 1.4GHz or higher.

If we do decide to do this, I believe we should post in a new thread (something to the effect of *official* Anandtech Cluser) instead of PMing what parts we have, that way the information can be publicly available. This will allow more efficient use of the resources that we have I think.

 

[KifArU]

There has been a TA cluster, it was called the warpcore and consisted of Abit BP6 m/b's with dual celerons o/c to 550 MHz. (so a long time ago) I believe about 10 nodes.

I recall DanC and Clay Autery having something to do with this. It was realised through financial contributions for m/b's, cpu's and a custom-made rack and donations for all the other parts.

I'm not sure what caused it to stop existing, but I believe the electricity bill was about $200 a month and not enough donations to keep it running. The nodes have been sold to members.

The search of the forum doesn't seem to go back long enough. But google gives a few hits. Maybe some other "old" member knows something more.

 

[rabrittain]

This is a good idea!!

:thumbsup:

 

[Philippart]

Yes, DONT PM anybody,
it will be more visible if I post a list in a new thread.

EDIT: new topic coming tomorrow!

 

[Orange Kid]

Originally posted by: KifArU
There has been a TA cluster, it was called the warpcore and consisted of Abit BP6 m/b's with dual celerons o/c to 550 MHz. (so a long time ago) I believe about 10 nodes.

I recall DanC and Clay Autery having something to do with this. It was realised through financial contributions for m/b's, cpu's and a custom-made rack and donations for all the other parts.

I'm not sure what caused it to stop existing, but I believe the electricity bill was about $200 a month and not enough donations to keep it running. The nodes have been sold to members.

The search of the forum doesn't seem to go back long enough. But google gives a few hits. Maybe some other "old" member knows something more.

It was LD and bphantom that ran the warp core (dnet), yes it was shut down due to electric costs after it had to be removed from the lab at the college they were attending ended their stay by actually giving them a diploma.
Russ bought some of the crunchers and ran them for a while as well as JonB I think. A few others may have bought and run crunchers also. I think DanC and Russ may have had their own cluster of crunchers running
Lanman was the last to have a 'Team' cluster that ran seti. It may still be running but was a hog-podge of older parts and never really had a great impact.
All I can say is good luck in this endever. Been down this road b4. I do have an old slot- dual p3-850 set-up that could be donated.