Q-Logic IB0056101-00 G manual Cluster Setup, Types of Nodes in a Cluster Environment

5 Software Installation

This section provides instructions for installing the InfiniPath and OpenFabrics software. The InfiniPath software includes drivers, protocol libraries, QLogic’s implementation of the MPI message passing standard, and example programs, including benchmarks. A complete list of the provided software is in “Software Components” on page 2-4.

Cluster Setup

Information on clusters, supported distributions and kernels, and environment setup is provided in “Types of Nodes in a Cluster Environment” on page 5-1, “Supported Linux Distributions” on page 5-2, and “Setting Up Your Environment” on page 5-2.

Types of Nodes in a Cluster Environment

In a cluster environment, different nodes can be used for different functions, such as launching jobs, developing software, or running jobs. The nodes are defined as follows:

„Front end node. This node launches jobs.

„Compute node. This node runs jobs.

„Development or build node. These are the machines on which examples or benchmarks can be compiled.

Any machine can serve any combination of these three purposes, but a typical cluster has many compute nodes and just a few (or only one) front end nodes. The number of nodes used for development will vary. These node names are used throughout this guide.

IB0056101-00 G 5-1