The Power to Perform with Octimod

Scalable, affordable high performance computing systems based on VIA EPIA Mini-ITX mainboards for small and medium sized organisations on a budget

Ainkaboot have pioneered an innovative approach to computer clustering: the Octimod cluster platform. Bringing high performance, high density computing to the small and medium sized business, this revolutionary platform provides an alternative to standard sever based systems which is scalable, adaptive, affordable, truly high density, simple to manage and maximises uptime.

The Octimod platform has been carefully designed to make clustering technologies as accessible as possible, based on the original Beowulf concept of commodity hardware clusters in combination with a focus on high density, power efficiency and cool running. Developed to provide an accessible and scalable platform which can grow with your organisation, be it a small, medium or large business, university or government department. Octimod can provide a simple platform for parallel computing, database replication, batch processing and supercomputing, essentially covering all current application of computing. By implementing a distributed DC power supply, heat is moved away from the processors allowing us to double the density through front and rear mounting. In an industry standard cabinet, 16 modules are possible in 4U.

The Octimod platform was designed around the VIA-pioneered Mini-ITX form factor, although other small form factor boards such as an ETX are used in some modules. The small size and focus on power efficiency allows high density and lowers power consumption, lowering the total cost of ownership. These feature rich mainboards provide built in gigabit networking and SATA support and other key features required for building a powerful computer cluster.

Processing modules are diskless, reducing power consumption for processing nodes. It is possible to turn a processing module into a disk server (although it would still boot from the network) by installing a disk module in the adjacent slot. Disk modules contain two SATA hard disks, either high speed 10krpm disks or high capacity 7.2krpm. These can be configured as SPAN or RAID 1/0 depending on the application and file system used. All units provide 4 disk slots which can be paired with adjacent modules to turn the Octimod system into a disk intensive server, there is a backplane which distributes the power and provides the SATA connectivity. Through this method of implementation, increased density and reliability for replication and cluster file systems is achieved, in addition to positively impacting on cost and power consumption than more traditional server designs.

The first available module for the Octimod platform is the MPC7-1500 based on the VIA EPIA EN15000 using the 1.5GHz VIA C7 processor. This offers a low power module suitable for disk serving in database replication and web serving situations as well as trivially parallel scalable situations such as batch processing and certain high performance computing programs. The VIA C7 was chosen for its low power envelope with each module consuming less than 30 watts at full load and less than 1 watt when idle, whereby a fully populated cabinet could provide 216GHz of processing power at under 4.3Kwatts!

Although available separately, Octimod is offered with Ainkaboot KlustOS cluster operating system complementing the hardware and designed to maximise performance and simplify management. KlustOS is based on Gentoo Linux, comprehensive support is offered either directly or through our partners. One example of KlustOS in action is its ability to make use of the VIA Padlock features on the C7 to improve inter-node communication, reducing network latency and improving performance.

The modules can be used in:

• Database Replication
• Render Farms
• Compile Farms
• Certain MPI applications
• Load balanced web serving
• Monte-Carlo option pricing in Finance
• Batch processing of repetitive, scheduled or transactional tasks
• Simulation and modelling of particles and molecules in physical, chemical, engineering, biotech and pharmaceutical industries

Complete clusters can be implemented for under £10,000, ready to scale if necessary at little more than the cost of more hardware.

To understand more about clusters, please visit the Ainkaboot website, or read the Ainkaboot clustering white paper.