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Cluster planning overview

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:
  1. 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.
  2. Review the Planning check list, which can help you track the planning steps that you have completed.
  3. 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.
  4. Review the planning resources for the individual servers that you want to use in your cluster. See Server planning.
  5. Review Planning InfiniBand network cabling and configuration to understand the network devices and configuration. The planning information addresses the following items:
  6. Review the Management subsystem planning. The management subsystem planning addresses the following items.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.


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Last updated: Tue, February 08, 2011