Use this information as a road map to guide you through
the cluster planning process.
If you read through the cluster planning overview without following
the links, you will gain an understanding of the overall cluster planning
strategy. Then you can follow the links that direct you through the
different procedures to gain an in-depth understanding of the cluster
planning process.
The planning procedures are arranged in a sequential order for
a new cluster installation. If you are not installing a new cluster,
you might need to choose which procedures to use. However, you should
still perform them in the order they appear in the Cluster planning
overview.
To plan your cluster, complete the following tasks:
- Gather and review the planning and installation information for
the components in the cluster. See Cluster information resources as a starting
point for where to obtain the information. This information provides
supplemental documentation with respect to clustered computing with
an InfiniBand network.
You must understand all of the planning information for the individual
components before continuing with this planning overview.
- Review the Planning check list, which
can help you track the planning steps that you have completed.
- Review the Required level of support, firmware, and devices to understand
the minimal level of software and firmware required to support clustering
with an InfiniBand network.
- Review the planning resources for the individual servers that
you want to use in your cluster. See Server planning.
- Review Planning InfiniBand network cabling and configuration to
understand the network devices and configuration. The planning information
addresses the following items:
- Review the Management subsystem planning. The management
subsystem planning addresses the following items.
- When you understand the devices in your cluster, review Frame planning, to ensure that you have appropriately
planned where to put devices in your cluster.
- After you understand the basic concepts for planning the cluster,
review the high-level installation flow information in Planning installation flow. It contains hints about planning
your installation, and contains guidelines to help you to coordinate
between your responsibilities, and the IBM service
representative responsibilities, and vendor responsibilities during
the installation process.
- Consider special circumstances such as whether you are configuring
applications that use message-passing-interface (MPI)
in a high-performance computing (HPC) environment. For more information,
see Planning for an HPC MPI configuration.
- For more hints and tips on installation planning, see Tips for planning cluster hardware.
If you have completed all the previous steps, you can plan in more
detail by using the planning work sheets provided in Planning work sheets.
When you are ready to install the components with which you plan
to build your cluster, review information in the readme file and online
information related to the software and firmware to ensure that you
have the latest information and the latest supported levels of firmware.
If this is the first time you have read the planning overview and
you understand the overall intent of the planning tasks, go back to
the beginning and start accessing the links and cross-references to
get more details.