It's about time for Personal Clusters
More than two decades ago, the Personal Computer was a stunning innovation that equipped, for the first time, a large and growing audience with powerful new technology. Similar to the computers and mainframes in seventies, today the cluster technology is the exclusive domain of large companies and their IT departments. Cluster In Motion is dedicated to democratize the cluster technology concept and bring it to everyone who needs more computational power at their finger tips.
A new era of Personal Super-Computing
Today Cluster In Motion is glad to announce that it is about time for individuals to own their Personal Compute Cluster (PCC) or Personal Cluster Workstation (PCW) just as we did when we transitioned from bulky mainframes to PC (Personal Computer).
As before, the size does matter when bringing such computing technology close to the user workspace as conventional clusters dorequire special air-conditioned spaces, separate rooms with raised floor for the noise they generate and most importantly a dedicated IT staff for the management and maintenance.
The ClusterStation is a powerful and innovative Personal Cluster WorkStation combining a high-end conventional PC Workstation (head or master node) and a disk based or diskless cluster (n compute nodes) in one compact desk-side and tower like case. ClusterStation is the next step in the evolution of Personal Computing extending the original Personal Computer (PC) to a Personal Commodity Cluster (PCC) or Personal Cluster Workstation with a new level of computing and capabilities.
Structure of The ClusterStation
The Master node comes with 2 GB of DDR memory in the standard configuration. This head node is used as a conventional Workstation through which the user will interact, performs visualization and submit jobs to the nodes of the cluster. Depending on the base configuration, the master node will be equipped with ultra-fast 128/256 MB DDR/DDR2 graphics card with AGPx8/PCI-Express 16 interface delivering stunning graphic performances. The compute node is part of the attached cluster.
The number of nodes can vary from 1 to 10. In the base configuration, each compute node comes pre-configured with 1 GB fast DDR 400/PC3200 memory, SATA hard drive and Gigabit Ethernet network adapter.
Key features and advantages
- Unique form factor: wheeled stylish and compact desk-side case to fit in any personal workspace.
- Small footprint: Industry first, shortdepth and compact tray or blade design
- Efficient air flow: Patent pending design for maximum air flow through natural and forced convection.
- Open case design: nodes are open with air circulating freely in the overall chassis eliminating hot spots.
- Better thermal efficiency: As all chassis and trays are made of Aluminum for efficient thermal dissipation.
- 32 or 64 bit support: A large choice of 32 and 64 bits processors to fit your computational needs.
- Best-in-class hardware components : ATX compliance allows us to choose the best COTS parts.
- Turnkey solution: Shipped pre-installed, pre-configured and pre-cabled for immediate deployment.
- Low Cost Of Ownership : Cost efficient when compared to Rack-mount or proprietary blade based alternatives.
- Ease of serviceability : its case design allows easy insertion or extraction of lightweight ATX trays.
The ClusterStation has been designed with optimal accoustics, the smallest footprint possible, ease of use, and broad support for ATX standard to ensure great user computing experience. Its sleek, aesthetic look conforms to any modern office, research or biotech lab and saves space without sacrificing performance.
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Great Computing Power The ClusterStation has been designed to provide very high computational processing per node for increased application performance and productivity. Furthermore its ATX standard based architecture allows the selection of the best in class and fastest components in the market be it processor, hard drive, memory, network. This way, we can accommodate the need of compute power hungry users without forcing them to wait for our next motherboard version that will support a new processor generation or memory technology as it is common with the Blade technology.
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Turn-Key Solution Unlike most cluster offerings that require significant integration and support, Cluster In Motion’s ClusterStation come with the operating system (Linux) loaded on each node, a fast gigabit network is cabled and required OS and network setup is performed. Explicit or implicit load balancing application or kernel patches such as Sung Grid Engine or Open-Mosix are installed, pre-configured and optimized for computationally intensive applications.After 48 hours of burn-in test, the ClusterStation is delivered to the user as one turn key unit ready to be used as a personal compute cluster.
Cluster In Motion made it extremely easy for anybody with basic Linux skills to deploy the ClusterStation which works out of the box. Every machine comes pre-installed and configured with all the required operating and all the software tools for the cluster management like Sun Grid Engine. Furthermore, everything the user will need is shipped in the same box even the power strip and network cables. It requires the same effort it takes to start a Linux PC, all it is needed from the user is to connect the power, keyboard, mouse, video, and network cables. From the moment the user receives the box to a full working workstation and cluster, less than an hour has gone…
By reducing the setup time the skills required we made the ClusterStation the ideal solution for individuals, small Labs, groups departments or startups who have limited IT resources and space.
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Personal Super-Computer in a Box The ClusterStation is a great solution for customers who would like to adopt super-computing solution but are still concerned about retaining control over their computing platform. It compact size, footprint, and overall volume fits perfectly in a user’s workspace in the form of desk-side stylish case. Furthermore our patent pending case design features low noise, better air flow and efficient heat dissipation through its aluminum chassis than conventional rackmount based solutions. Its structure simplifies serviceability and maintenance of the nodes.
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Limitless Use Models While the whole unit could be used as conventional small cluster attached to an external and existing workstation, the preferred use model is the Personal Cluster Workstation model where the ClusterStation has at least one master or head node and a adjunct compute cluster .
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Unprecedented Configurability The ClusterStation has been designed to work in different environments with different computing, storage and graphic requirements. The case design can accommodate different width units such 1U, 1½U, 2U and 3U computer nodes. The case can house up to 15 1U units or 10 1½U micro-ATX nodes. For instance a small Lab already equipped with workstations may configure the ClusterStation as a 10 nodes cluster or compute farm, while an Internet café, public library, a computer classroom, or several booths in a tradeshow might use it as 10 independent computers serving 10 users at the same time. A CAD designer performing modeling and simulation of complex systems will prefer to have a high-end graphic workstation (3U) with high performance disks and an attached cluster of n compute nodes (2U or 1.5U) for acceleration and load balancing on-demand. |
Your best friend at the Tradeshows Many companies ship dozens of machines to tradeshows; their installation, setup and tear down are taking significant IT resources. Most importantly the shipping and handling of all the boxes from one tradeshow/seminar/conference location to another location especially to another continent can become at the end of the year an important cost in Marketing budget which are very tight nowadays. The ClusterStation addresses specifically this issue and reduces significantly these extra-costs by reducing the number of machine that need to be setup/tear-down for tradeshows and also the volume of boxes that need to be handled, tracked and shipped. This cost saving can be spent efficiently on marketing the company’s product instead of on shipping companies.
As an example; a ClusterStation with 10 nodes weighs only 90lbs compared to 270 lbs or more of separate computers, but the main saving (80%) comes especially from the overall volume when shipping 10 different boxes instead of one box. |
