Cluster Computing

October 6th, 2008

The main reason why I entered the computer science field is CREATION. Given a computer and programming environment, one can create something from his imagination from an empty notepad. Though I’m far from becoming a successful one, I still persist in learning. Learning is double edged. It’s fun and it’s demanding. Since my topic is cluster computing, there’s no reason for me to delve on the negative side of learning. Instead, let’s jump on the fun side.

I enjoy learning new things in computing. It’s a pity because I didn’t learn much when I was in college and now I’m trying to teach myself without the help of professors and classmates. I believe that learning hands-on is way better. If I was to do it again [college], I still wouldn’t learn as much as I’ve learned on the field. My current employer does not have sophisticated computing. All we have are file server, mail server, and a phone server. I may have splurged for a better setup if I had thought it out properly or was well informed. You see, i stayed away from RAID mechanism because (1) it was over the budget, (2) I don’t approve of it (if cost was a factor). To make a long story short, I’m suffering now because I miscalculated the setup (or rather experimentally failed).

My biggest woe at work is storage. Second is processing. Third is system. Fourth is portability. I wish I have partitioned the drives properly. I would like to do a re-install, but I have no time to do so. I will have to spend a week or two to do this — alone! We will be migrating into a system which is very user unfriendly, but the maintenance is out of my hands. Still, I’m not happy with the system. Because I had limited knowledge in computing (I still am) and with very minimal budget, my portability solutions have been deduced to freeware.

At work, one server takes care of everything including terminal services. No wonder the damn thing shuts down by itself without absence in every week. Windows is user friendly, but not admin-friendly. I hate the damn Windows Updates that forces the damn box to restart even though it’s setup to not do anything unless I say so. If I ignore it enough number of times, it’ll do the updates by itself. (Done digressing.) A TS session (for us)  requires plenty of processing resources and sometimes if Windows haven’t slept for a few hours, it’ll just stick the process on the memory even though the session has ended. It adds to the causes of rapid shutdowns.

These shortcomings can be solved, but the timing and management budget won’t allow me. In our other office, they are really hooked up pretty well. Though the technology is minimally used, I liek the setup there. They have a farm of tower servers, but they are not exactly clusters. They’re just a farm of different processes.

Since I’ve seen my setup which doesn’t work as I thought it out, I do my own research at home. I have a small network in the house which I could contest against the office setup. However, my goal since the beginning when I first started tweaking my computer hardware was to build a cheap, but powerful personal computer. Cheap on the standards that I can afford it while it can compete against expensive powerful processing environments. I have ideas on how to go about it, but nothing concrete. The projection is still afar. I’m not perfectly stable financially to undertake such project. The good thing is that I have a model to follow. I saw from hackaday’s website an article on cluster computing using an IKEA cabinet as the case. Though I may not follow the IKEA way, it’s a confirmation that such project can be achieved. My goal is the same as his, but the purpose would be different.

If I win the lottery, I will begin the project immediately. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait.

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Entry Filed under: Computers, Electronics, Hardware, Software