[mpich-discuss] Does MPICH2 work with multiple NICs, and how?

[Darius Buntinas]

Hi Gus,

Right now, channel bonding is the only option.  Addressing multiple 
Gig-E NICs is in our future plans though.

-d

On 06/03/2008 09:38 AM, Gus Correa wrote:
> Dear MPICH developers and experts
> 
> 1) Does MPICH2 (or MPICH-1) work with multiple Gigabit Ethernet NICs 
> installed on the
> computing nodes of a PC Linux cluster?
> 
> 2) If it does work with multiple NICs, what is the recommended mechanism 
> to use MPICH2
> with multiple NICs: LACP/channel bonding, multiple IP addresses, 
> something else?
> 
> 3) If it doesn't work with multiple NICs,
> are there plans to include communication with multiple NICs in MPICH2, 
> and how soon?
> 
> We are long time MPICH users, and so far our old single-core/dual-slot 
> PC computer
> cluster nodes have had single NICs, performing reasonably well.
> However, most new PC cluster nodes on the market these days are 
> multi-core/multi-slot,
> and a single NIC per node is likely to produce network contention.
> I have to buy a replacement cluster for our group (which mostly does 
> computations with MPICH),
> hence my concern about this.
> 
> I hope the questions are appropriate.
> Many thanks for any clarification or help.
> 
> Gus Correa
>