[Discuss] Education - becoming a Cluster Administrator

[markw at mohawksoft.com (markw at mohawksoft.com)]

>> There are a few types of clusters.....
>>
>> 1) Where all the machines run the same code
>> 2) where the job is divided across multiple machines
>> 3) mix and match combinations of the above two
>>
>
> In any case there are some things that you should learn regardless of
> the type of cluster when dealing with multiple *nix machines.  You'll
> need to learn something like Puppet or Chef to manage configurations,
> installed packages, and have these things backed up by revision
> control to manage changes on the system.  You'll need to learn how to
> deal with NIS or LDAP for centralizing users across the computers.
> Although you can use Puppet/Chef to do that as well but NIS or LDAP is
> a better solution.
>
> As for how to go about doing this.  I would just set up a bunch of
> virtual machines to learn the ropes of these things.

I wouldn't actually look at *any* of the applications in your list. First
thing I'd do is learn ssh/sshd/agent setup. If you are dealing with a
cluster, that's your first priority.

Second, if it is a "compute" cluster, where a job is divided across
multiple computers, figure out what mechanism they use, i.e. MPI, LAM,
PVM, etc. If it is a redandancy cluster, find out which mechanism is used
for distribution, i.e. nginx, LVS, etc.

Know the mechanism by which the cluster operates as a "cluster." Know the
mechanisms by which they are managed.

> --
> David
>