New Server build...Complete noob please help

[Ghost_]

Hello guys,

I am quite new here and completely noob to server builds. I am a computer user for very many years but i never managed to build and setup a server..!!

Now that the time has come i hope to help me with the setup. First of all the use for this server will be for render and for using cfd programs that can do parallel processing for the acceleration of their results.

The server will be used mainly by me so it won't do rendering the same time it does cfd calculations. When i render i would like to use all the available cores.Moreover i would like to operate the server remotely because it will be in my basement so i don't want to go to the basement all the time.

An another problem i think i might have is that the cfd programs i use are made for linux and the 3DS MAX i use is for windows so i don't know how to deal with that.

As fas the hardware i have found a Dell C6100 in a very good price. It has 4 nodes with 2 Xeons QC X5560 2.8 GHz each so that's 8 quad core xeons, 144GB DDR3 RAM,12 x 3.5" Hot Swap SATA Drive Bays - 3.5" Caddies included, and 2 x 1200w Hot Swap PSU. All these for 1600 euros that's about 2000$ including shipping..!!

I hope you guys can help me it set it up and also please guide on the hardware selection (switches etc,etc..!)

Thank you in advance..!!!

 

[dba]

Hello guys,

I am quite new here and completely noob to server builds. I am a computer user for very many years but i never managed to build and setup a server..!!

Now that the time has come i hope to help me with the setup. First of all the use for this server will be for render and for using cfd programs that can do parallel processing for the acceleration of their results.

The server will be used mainly by me so it won't do rendering the same time it does cfd calculations. When i render i would like to use all the available cores.Moreover i would like to operate the server remotely because it will be in my basement so i don't want to go to the basement all the time.

An another problem i think i might have is that the cfd programs i use are made for linux and the 3DS MAX i use is for windows so i don't know how to deal with that.

As fas the hardware i have found a Dell C6100 in a very good price. It has 4 nodes with 2 Xeons QC X5560 2.8 GHz each so that's 8 quad core xeons, 144GB DDR3 RAM,12 x 3.5" Hot Swap SATA Drive Bays - 3.5" Caddies included, and 2 x 1200w Hot Swap PSU. All these for 1600 euros that's about 2000$ including shipping..!!

I hope you guys can help me it set it up and also please guide on the hardware selection (switches etc,etc..!)

Thank you in advance..!!!

The c6100 is a nice choice for an inexpensive cluster. $2,200 USD (1600 Euros) isn't a great price, unless it includes shipping from the US to europe and VAT, but if fits within your budget and saves you the many hours needed to build your own server, it could easily be worth it.

To start with you need networking. You could start by buying any old Gigabit network switch. At a minimum you need five ports - one per server plus one to upload to your main network. Better would be a switch that supports LACP and has nine or more ports - two ports per server for LACP to double your bandwidth plus one as above. Of course many types of parallel computing benefit greatly from fast networking, so consider upgrading to 10GbE or Infiniband if you are clustering and need to pass data around quickly - OpenFOAM CFD using MPI for example. DDR Infiniband is faster than 10GbE and quite cheap. With four nodes you don't need QDR Infiniband yet. In fact, you may or may not benefit from anything above Gigabit Ethernet, depending on the details of your computations.

You'll get remote management for free using the IPMI that is built in to the c6100.

 

[Mike]

Over in the UK there are a bunch of Supermicro Twin 2u's for sale, comparable to the c6100. I almost got a barebone, but then realised i really do not need another server doing nothing.

 

[Ghost_]

The c6100 is a nice choice for an inexpensive cluster. $2,200 USD (1600 Euros) isn't a great price, unless it includes shipping from the US to europe and VAT, but if fits within your budget and saves you the many hours needed to build your own server, it could easily be worth it.

To start with you need networking. You could start by buying any old Gigabit network switch. At a minimum you need five ports - one per server plus one to upload to your main network. Better would be a switch that supports LACP and has nine or more ports - two ports per server for LACP to double your bandwidth plus one as above. Of course many types of parallel computing benefit greatly from fast networking, so consider upgrading to 10GbE or Infiniband if you are clustering and need to pass data around quickly - OpenFOAM CFD using MPI for example. DDR Infiniband is faster than 10GbE and quite cheap. With four nodes you don't need QDR Infiniband yet. In fact, you may or may not benefit from anything above Gigabit Ethernet, depending on the details of your computations.

You'll get remote management for free using the IPMI that is built in to the c6100.

dba thank you for answer..!

Actually the price includes VAT and shipping from UK to Greece..! Of course if you know any european shop in which i can get a server like this with less money, your suggestion will be pretty welcome.

Which software do you think will be best suited for the above applications..? Moreover if i would like to add users for example in the future,
maybe my sister can do some rendering jobs too will that be easy..?

I thought to install ESX and run virtual machines one windows for rendering and one linux for OPENFoam but i don't know if i am thinking right...

Thank you

 

[dba]

dba thank you for answer..!

Actually the price includes VAT and shipping from UK to Greece..! Of course if you know any european shop in which i can get a server like this with less money, your suggestion will be pretty welcome.

Which software do you think will be best suited for the above applications..? Moreover if i would like to add users for example in the future,
maybe my sister can do some rendering jobs too will that be easy..?

I thought to install ESX and run virtual machines one windows for rendering and one linux for OPENFoam but i don't know if i am thinking right...

Thank you

If it were me, I'd go with "real" installs rather than VMs for heavy-duty tasks like rendering and fluid dynamics. You could always keep a second set of hard drives around to "convert" a node for use as a VM host.

 

[Patrick]

Or just dual boot, although bringing up 4x nodes would be rough.

 

[Ghost_]

Thank you guys for all the suggestions...!! OK i will go with real installs so now my next question is which software to install and how...! For example should i install Windows Server and Fedora for linux..? And how can i install them...??

In the disk of one headnode should i install both software or install windows in one node and linux on an another..?? How can i configure this..??

Guys thank you very much for your help, I know that my questions sound realy stupid but i have never ever tryied to setup a server before so i don'y know nothing..!!