In February, Biogen put 150 computing nodes online. These comprised dual-processor Pentium PCs managed by a Sun Microsystems server that acts as the central point of entry for researchers needing access to processing power. Bridge between cycles Job distribution software is important in helping Biogen's farm achieve its potential, because it can share out the many partial calculations that are needed in parallel processing schemes. Michael Athanas, director of scientific computing and development for Blackstone Technology Group, the systems integrator that helped Biogen get its farm up and running, says, 'Providing compute cycles is easy. With the right load balancing software, a collection of loosely coupled PCs can achieve about 98 percent of their combined theoretical efficiency, Athanas says.
Compute farms cost relatively little because they rely on low-end hardware and software.
Michael Swenson, an analyst at market research company IDC, says, 'There's a 'grow your own' aspect to compute farms. Another attraction of compute farms is that they are highly scalable. Rather than having to replace an expensive minicomputer or supercomputer, growing companies that require more processing cycles need only plug in another rack of PCs. The importance of having a central server is that it means researchers do not have to log in to a computing node directly. This is an advantage because most scientists are not Linux experts, says Fuchs.