O'Reilly Releases "Building Linux Clusters" (fwd)

[Steven Pritchard <steve@silug.org>]

I figured a few of you might be interested in this...

----- Forwarded message from Denise Olliffe -----

Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 16:40:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Denise Olliffe <deniseo@oreilly.com>
Message-Id: <200007272340.QAA03485@rock.west.ora.com>
To: steve@silug.org
Subject: O'Reilly Releases "Building Linux Clusters"

For immediate release 

NEW RELEASE SHOWS HOW TO CLUSTER
LINUX MACHINES TO MIMIC THE PERFORMANCE OF SUPERCOMPUTERS

Sebastopol, CA--O'Reilly's latest release, "Building Linux Clusters" by
David HM Spector, defines a cluster in its simplest form as "a bunch of
computers tied together with a network, working on some large problem
that has been broken down into smaller pieces." The simplicity of the
definition belies the importance of the subject. The list of the
world's most powerful supercomputers now includes Beowulf machines: PCs
running Linux, clustered together into a single machine.

>From scientific applications to transaction processing, clustering
technology provides an affordable, scalable computing solution. One of
the hottest topics in Linux today is the ability to cluster Linux
machines to mimic the performance of supercomputers (costing hundreds
of thousands of dollars) for a fraction of the cost.

"Computing problems always seem to meet or exceed available computing
resources. There is always a need for more processing power, more
network bandwidth, and greater I/O capabilities," says Spector. "This
need for speed has prompted a whole new class of machines:
supercomputers. In fact, supercomputer class machines--the construction
of which is the topic of my book--influence almost every aspect of
modern life."

"The Linux operating system has given rise to a host of interesting and
unique computing possibilities that would have been impossible, and
perhaps even unthinkable, in a pre-Linux era," says Spector. Some
examples that Spector gives, include:

- A single cross-platform operating system
- An open source operating system whose entire code base is freely
  available for research, commercial use, and improvement
- A system that has the potential to displace both Unix variants and 
  Windows NT as a server operating system
- A scaleable parallel processing system that allows performance
  comparable to traditional supercomputers (IBM SP/2 or Cray), but at a
  fraction of the cost

"Since the ground-breaking work was done at NASA, Beowulf-style
clusters have become their own well-defined genre of high-performance
computing systems," explains Spector. "By October 1999, several of the
systems in the top 200 supercomputers in the world were made up of
Linux cluster systems."

Spector's first Linux cluster, and ultimately his new book "Building
Linux Clusters", arose from his need for an affordable home
supercomputer for his research. Building it was a challenge. "I noticed
that a lot of people talk about it, but the documentation is really
terse. There's no way for someone to start who doesn't have all the
knowledge already." Spector wrote up an outline and realized it would
make a great O'Reilly book. And, as it turned out, O'Reilly was looking
for just such a book.

"Building Linux Clusters" is a hands-on guide for people new to
clusters. "Like most O'Reilly books," said Spector, "it's to get people
going. You can build a cluster right out of the box: You pop the CD in,
follow the instructions, and in ten or twenty minutes you have a fully
functional cluster."

Spector likes to say that the book tells a story. And indeed, the first
chapter is a brief, lively history of the evolution of supercomputers
and, eventually, of clusters, including Don Becker's first Beowulf
cluster. Built in 1994 to meet NASA's need for supercomputer
performance on a shoestring budget, it used Linux and off-the-shelf
hardware, saving NASA a couple of million bucks, according to Spector.

Spector thinks that the most exciting future applications of clusters
are the least possible to predict. That's because learning to work with
parallel computing changes the way people look at problems and opens
new possibilities for applications. "People have to step out of the
mindset of being serial and think about how to do everything at the
same time. And that's a hard transition, but once you do that, suddenly
new vistas open to you."

"Building Linux Clusters" introduces the reader to the basics of
cluster installation and configuration. In addition to a step-by-step
tutorial on how to install Linux on a cluster of machines, "Building
Linux Clusters" shows how to customize the installation for clustering,
gives an overview of parallel programming, and tips on parallelizing
existing software. This important new book also includes a CD with Red
Hat Linux customized for clustering support, plus a number of
programming tools to optimize programs for a cluster environment.

For an interview with David HM Spector, see:
http://linux.oreilly.com/news/spector_0600.html

Chapter 9, Application Examples, can be found online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/clusterlinux/chapter/ch09.html

For more information about the book, see:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/clusterlinux/

For a cover graphic in jpeg format, go to:
ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/1565926250.jpg


# # #


Building Linux Clusters
Scaling Linux for Scientific and Enterprise Applications 
By David HM Spector
1st Edition, August 2000 
1-56592-625-0, 352 pages, $44.95, Includes CD-ROM
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
http://www.oreilly.com
-
To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@silug.org with
"unsubscribe silug-discuss" in the body.