Comparative performance of a commodity Alpha cluster running Linux and Windows NT

Author

Lancaster, David ; Takeda, Kenji

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. & Comput. Sci., Southampton Univ., UK

fYear

1999

fDate

1999

Firstpage

19

Lastpage

25

Abstract

Using a cluster of commodity Alpha processors, we compare two software platforms based on Linux and Windows NT and intended to support intensive scientific computations. Networking and compiler performance are separately analysed and then results for NAS parallel benchmarks are given. We find that a compiler able to make good use of the cache is more important than low network latency in obtaining high performance. We argue that for all types of cluster, the choice of compiler is critical in selecting a cost effective platform for computationally intensive scientific application

Keywords

Unix; network operating systems; performance evaluation; program compilers; workstation clusters; Linux; NAS parallel benchmarks; Windows NT; commodity Alpha cluster; commodity Alpha processors; comparative performance; compiler performance; computationally intensive scientific application; cost effective platform; intensive scientific computations; low network latency; software platforms; Computer applications; Computer science; Costs; Delay; Linux; Message passing; Operating systems; Performance analysis; Software performance; Workstations;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Cluster Computing, 1999. Proceedings. 1st IEEE Computer Society International Workshop on

Conference_Location

Melbourne, Vic.

Print_ISBN

0-7695-0343-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IWCC.1999.810805

Filename

810805