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

[Gus Correa]

Hi Darius (and MPICH-Discuss list)

Thank you very much for the important clarification, Darius.
I poked around but could not find anything in the MPICH documentation
about multiple NICs.  (Maybe there is something, but I couldn't find.)

Two more questions, if it is OK to ask:

4) Is there any experiment/benchmark/measurement on how MPICH2 performs with
channel bonding on Gigabit Ethernet NICs?
I have been told some network applications (e.g. NFS) show little 
improvement
when channel bonding is used.

5) Can I understand that in the future MPICH2 will provide multiple IP 
addresses
as an alternative to channel bonding (or perhaps instead of channel 
bonding)?

Many thanks once again.

Gus Correa

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Gustavo J. Ponce Correa, PhD - Email: gus at ldeo.columbia.edu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory - Columbia University
P.O. Box 1000 [61 Route 9W] - Palisades, NY, 10964-8000 - USA
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Darius Buntinas wrote:

>
> 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
>>