Following the successful implementation of a pilot PC Linux cluster system earlier this year, we have acquired a bigger PC cluster from Compaq. The cluster comprises of 1 master node and 32 compute (slave) nodes each consisting of two 1 GHz Intel Pentium III processors, 2 GB of RAM and 18 GB of local hard disk.  A 252 GB RAID disk is also attached to the master node. These processor nodes are interconnected by fast Ethernet network for inter-processor communications. 

The Red Hat Linux 7.2 operating system, PGI (Portland Group) compilers and the MPICH message-passing libraries have been installed in these nodes.  More software will be installed in this cluster as the system develops. 

This PC cluster will provide an alternative solution to the high performance computing facility currently provided by the IBM SP2 parallel computer.  At the moment, programs from a number of SP2 users have already been ported to the new cluster. Encouraging results have been obtained in most cases.  Detailed information about the new PC cluster system can be found at: 

  http://www.itservices.hku.hk/ccsystem/hkuhpcc