Hi Mr. Mahmood, 

I have a company for customized HPC solution, IO our experience it will be more interesting use E5 processors them E7 for gaussian performance.  Also you must consider use more them 128gb for each node.   Run from these 10K hard drives, use these resources to improve RAM memory.

My overall suggestion is that you try to measure the typical size of your simulation, it is recommended that each node have as memory. 

In terms of general approach, I would give three pieces of advice.

1. Spend time on procurement. It is a big decision that you will have to live with for the life of the cluster. Spending a few more hours to spec and select wisely is time well spent.

2. Spec *>function

Dear  John W Cobb,

Thank you very much for in detail answer. Really appreciated.

Before I start I want to make it clear I work for Intel and was the original lead architect of the Intel Cluster Ready specification.

Specifying the cluster is only part of the problem.  It needs to designed, an instance of the design created and the health of the same needs to be taken into account.  All of these phases make your total experience good or bad.   Since, there was many issues that came to bear int he cluster space, Intel wanted to make it easier to the end users to succeed.  Thus Intel developed a cluster architecture spanning small to enterprise and even Top 10 style system.   This architecture, Intel Cluster Ready (aka ICR), is available to anyone to download (see:   http://www.intel.com/go/clusters).  The idea is to solve two problems:

1.) Make is easy to purchase a cluster that is known to work and keep working.  -- i.e. you vendor creates a system that has been correctly integrated/ known to work when arrives at your site and will continue work well in the future.

2.) Ensure that the application codes that you want run can be installed and will function on that cluster.  [ISV's that are part of the program, validated that their codes "just work" and do not violate architectural considerations -- i.e. installing application A does not some how reek havoc on a previous installed application B.

But an architecture only goes so far, Intel has created a tool, called the Intel Cluster Checker which makes available for free to its OEM & manufacturing partners to help them in three ways:

1.) Certify that design will actually meet specification (design mode)

2.) Verify in manufacturing that the cluster actually is an instance of that design (manufacturing mode)

3.) Validate/Diagnose (health mode) that the current running cluster has not deviated from they way it was when it was installed (entropy has not take over). [The partners are required to deliver the tool to you the user, so you have it keep the cluster running properly]

I highly encourage you to go the web site and get the documents that are there.   Then work with your specific vendor and make sure they put together an ICR compliant cluster (if you want, do what may users do and add ICR compliance and certification as a requirement to your bid).  If they do not already have it, your vendor can get the cluster checker tool from Intel and use it to create a system for you.  Note they are required to deliver a copy of Intel CLCK & it's associated "fingerprint files" on the system as part of certification, so you have in the future to keep you system in top health.

Best wishes,

Clem Cole

HPC Architect, Intel

A note about Genuine Intel vs "or compatible"  and the difference between and architecture and instance of that architecture.    As the manufacturer of the CPU chips and creator of the specification and associated certification program, ICR defines the use of Intel*64 based processors in ICR certified clusters.   We can not speak for the validity of using non-Intel manufactured CPUs in the cluster.   Thus the specification calls for Intel*64 (aka Xeon or Xeon Phi) processors.   When the Cluster Checker tool runs, it will detect and warn of issues where the cluster instance deviates from the specification, from incorrectly set up IB connections, missing software components and the like.   If the tool detects a processor that is not what the specification defined a warning will be issues.    That said, ICR is an >>Architecture

Dear Cole,

Thank you very much for your reply. Most of information in your reply are really new for me. I hope these will give me more understandings.

Regards,

Clement,

the URL in your note did not work for me. It redirected to an Intel landing page. but https://clusterready.intel.com/ seemed to be useful.

Bad fingers ... typo:  no "s" on the end.

Sorry about that...  http://www.intel.com/go/cluster