GRASS on Beowulf

[Rohit]

Hi Rich,

Our group [DataSURG, dept of Cs, North dakota state univ] is primarily
interested in integrating GRASS into our web based image analysis system
called SMILEY.

Our group owns a 32 processor/16 node [dual processor] linux
supercomputer.

we are new to grass and we are exploring a grass server that makes use of
the parallelism to increase throughput.

We'd be VERY keen to work/co-operate with you on this issue.

regards,
rohit



>   After a couple of days of investigation and e-mail discussions with the
> experts, I can now report that GRASS, SWAT and the other neat tools
> available to us can be re-compiled to take advantage of parallel processing.
> 
>   There may be other vendors out there, but I know several of the folks at
> The Portland Group (http://www.pgroup.com), and they've been very helpful.
> Their high-performance, aggressive-parallelization compilers are widely used
> in the supercomputing sector.
> 
>   The brief answer is that GRASS, SWAT and the other models can run on
> multiple processors or clusters. TPG's toolkits will analyze the code and
> determine what needs to run on a single processor and what can run on
> multiple ones. They have both FORTRAN (77 and 90) and C/C++ compilers
> available.
> 
>   Although this is just something I'm considering for much later this year,
> I'm looking at an EZ Parallel Supercomputer 2796
> <http://ezcp.cjb.net/supercomputers.html> with its 6 Celeron 466MHz
> processors. The price is reasonable (currently US$6,500); the next step up
> is a better value: 16 processors and a larger hard drive, but the price is
> US$15,000. Anyway, these are beowulf clusters; a linux supercompter.
> 
>   If we develop the business where we are running GRASS/SWAT models and
> simulations on a regular basis, I'd like to work the the Portland Group
> folks to produce a multiprocessor version.
> 
>   So, it can be done. I wonder how long it would take, Bruce, to run HUMUS
> on the US$20,000 Supercomputer 8800 with its 16 PIII/550MHz cpus and 2G RAM?
> Wouldn't that be an interesting comparison?
> 
> Rich
> 
> Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
> 
>                        Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
>               Making environmentally-responsible mining happen. (SM)         
>                        --------------------------------
>             2404 SW 22nd Street | Troutdale, OR 97060-1247 | U.S.A.
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> 
> 

regards,
Rohit

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go east, go west. debian linux is the best !