Re: opinions on routers/switches for parallel clusters

[Jonathan Disher <jdisher () ipix com>]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2001, Albert Meyer wrote:

> Having dealt with Lucent I can warn you away from them (as if I need to 
> nowadays). Having dealt with Cabletron I can warn you away from Riverstone. 
> The only company you mention which has consistently provided excellent 
> products and support (and never screwed me around or lied to me) is Cisco. 
> Their stuff is a bit overpriced, but <cliche> you get what you pay for. 
> </cliche>

I've got a pair of ExtremeNetworks BlackDiamond 6808's running my
production datacenter installation (2 8 port gig blades, 1 12 port gig
blade, and 4 32 port 100TX blades each), and I love them to death.  They
just work (tm).

-j

> At 11:15 AM 6/18/01 -0500, keichii () freebsd org wrote:
>
> > Hi Everyone,
> >
> > We are an educational institution looking into building
> > a scientific computing cluster that has 128-256 nodes
> > interconnected by gigE.  The outward connection would
> > be the site FDDI ring.
> >
> > The problem is that we want to experiment with the topology
> > as well as the computing part. :)  And I am at a loss
> > as to what gigE switch and router we should use.
> >
> > The requirements are:
> > 1. ability to morph the topology at will
> > 2. fast (doh!)
> > 3. Layer 1-4 is required (up to layer 7 would be nice)
> > 4. load balancing
> >
> > Which companies' products do you like? (*Barring* Cisco)
> > [If you cannot state your opinion publicly, please send me a
> > private reply.  I appreciate it and will keep it confidential.)
> >
> > I am looking at these companies:
> > Lucent
> > Foundey Networks
> > River Stone
> > Alteon
> > Extreme Networks
> > Ericcson
> >
> > Would the people who have had experience with these products
> > tell me what they feel?  Thank you very much.
> >
> > Michael
> > --
> > +-----------------------------------------------------------+
> > | keichii () iteration net         | keichii () freebsd org       |
> > | http://iteration.net/~keichii | Yes, BSD is a conspiracy. |
> > +-----------------------------------------------------------+

-- 
-Jonathan Disher
-Sr. Systems and Network Engineer, Web Operations
-Internet Pictures Corporation, Palo Alto, CA
-[v] (650) 388-0497 | [p] (877) 446-9311 | [e] jdisher () eng ipix com