Introduction

Overview

The An Najah Computing Cluster (ANCC) is designed for high throughput computing. It consists of about 50 worker nodes and 8 data servers. In order to efficiently and reliably manage the system, the provisioning tool Cobbler and the configuration management tool Puppet are used. It is highly recommended to use these tools for all system administration even simple package installation. If these tools are used easy commissioning new hosts and consistent management of running hosts can be achieved with minimal work. These tools will be discussed later.

Hardware

The hardware consists of:

  • 48 - 12 real core/24 logical core CPUs wth 48GB and 3 2TB drives

  • 8 - 4 real core/8 logical data storage units with 24 2TB drives

The current configuration is:

  • Gateway node:
    • t3ps.najah.edu

    • Allows remote ssh access

    • NAT router

  • Virtual machine host
    • t3ps010.najah.edu* Data server.najah.edu

    • t3ps001

Worker Nodes

Server Nodes

Network Switches

Physical layout