Physical Infrastructure

OK, so you've worked your way through the first umpty-chapters of this book (and possibly the Sterling, Salmon, Becker and Savarese book, and the HOWTO's, and the FAQ) and have picked a beowulf architecture. You've probably priced it out, as well, as cost-benefit was undoubtedly an important part of your selection criteria. You are probably almost ready to order the parts...

First, however, there are a few things you might not have thought about yet that you definitely need to consider^11.1. Let's arrange them in a bulleted checklist (to see what they all are) and then we'll briefly discuss each one.

• Where are you going to put it? Is there enough space/volume? Is it convenient to the expected users of the system(s)?
• Is the floor of your space strong enough to support the weight of all that iron (no kidding!)?
• How are you going to provide power to all the nodes and switches and so forth^11.2?
• How are you going to remove all that power when is released in the form of heat during operation? Is there enough air conditioning?
• Are there other infrastructure requirements? Do you need to run additional network lines into the space? A phone line? A thermal kill switch?
• Do you need any additional security measures for the space?
• Don't forget about physical network support, as in cable trays, places to run wire neatly, connections to any requisite LAN or WAN.
• What about a handy place to work on nodes? They won't run forever; you'll be in there fixing them.
• How are you going to pay for the recurring costs of running the nodes, and the amortized costs for renovating or ``renting'' the space it requires so that it has enough power, cooling, strong floors, security, network trays, workbench and tools and so forth?

``Hmmm,'' you say. ``Spent so long thinking about the programs and the node hardware that I forgot about the physical requirements of all those nodes.'' I thought so. Let's take them in order.