Cluster Challenge 2008 : Optimizing Cluster Configuration and Applications to Maximize Power Efficiency

The goal of the Cluster Challenge is to design, build and operate a compute cluster. Although it is an artificial environment for cluster computing, many of its key constraints on operation of cluster systems are important to real world scenarios: high energy efficiency, reliability and scalability. In this paper, we describe our approach to ac- complish these goals. We present our original system design and illustrate changes to that system as well as to applications and system settings in order to achieve maximum performance within the given power and time limits. Finally we suggest how our conclusions can be used to improve current and future clusters.