[R] Using GNU R on a two box "cluster"

[Thomas Schönhoff]

Hello,

Dirk Eddelbuettel schrieb:
> On Sun, Nov 07, 2004 at 11:42:33AM +0100, Thomas Sch?nhoff wrote:
> 
>>right now I'm thinking about running R 2.0.0 on box A (Debian SID) but 
>>at the same time having access to the ressources of box B (Ubuntu 
>>Linux) regarding disk capacity, RAM, idle CPU cycles . Is there anyone 
>>of you that has already installed and administred such a tiny (home 
>>based) cluster?
> 
> [...]
> 
>>Are there any recommended methods or tools to realize a two nodes cluster?
> 
> 
> The best place to start is probably the high-level snow package which does
> all clustering in userspace -- i.e. it'll work on your machines just by
> pulling in the packages it needs. Moreover, as both of your machines are
> Debian-based, all you need should 
> 
> $ apt-get install r-cran-snow
> 
> modulo maybe deciding which communications protocol you want to use (pvm or
> lam/mpi).
> 
> Another approach is to burn a dvd from the Quantian iso images (see
> http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/) and boot one machine with it (note
> that there are also some tricks that help you do that without burning a dvd,
> but that is still the best way to start).  You can then boot a second
> machine rather easily by starting the openMosix Terminalserver that is part
> of Quantian --- and you second machine can be booted off the first one
> already running Quantian (provided is can boot via PXE, many recent BIOS
> support this).  That gives you a two-node cluster with openMosix, and you
> can start, say, two R sessions with lengthy simulations, and one should
> migrate automagically to other box.   

Thanks to you and Dan for response, seems like a lot to be done ;-)


sincerely

Thomas