The New York Linux Users GroupRobert Rusinko on Using Rocks to build Linux Clusters and Subhendu Ghosh on the Cobbler Provisioning System (April 30, 2008)
There are now many options for creating Linux clusters; clustering remains one of the hottest applications for Linux today. Along with an overview of the popular clustering software, we will focus on the Rocks package sponsored by the National Science Foundation, from basic installation to running jobs. Robert Rusinko will be show us the ins and outs of setting up clusters using Rocks, and give us a peek at the Rocks 5.0 (Beta) using Xen.
If you've ever had to take a pile of computers and turn them into working systems, you already know how much work there is from unpacking them to putting them into production. Various tools have been created to automate portions of the process, such as Kickstart, but still leave a lot of work to the person installing the systems. Cobbler aims to make this process easier and less error-prone by providing a PXE boot server and tools such as Koan, to allow you a template-based system to provision new systems, whether physical or virtual. Subhendu Ghosh will take us on a walkthrough of Cobbler so you can see how easy it can be.
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