Load-bancing cluster

Hello everybody
I want to built a load balancing cluster. But I don't know which one I can choose openMosix or LVS (linux virtual server). Please help me.
Please explain their advantage and disadvantage.
Thanks.

ronaldo

I haven't had any experience with LVS but I can tell you that OpenMosix is really really great... check out the whole OpenMosix tutorial in the menu above.


Cheers

Ronaldo,

What do you want to do ?
There is a significant difference 'Load Balancers' and 'Cluster'
ISP's use Load Balancers alot for there servers... i.e. HTTP server farm, and almost all there other servers.
Clusters i think are mainly used for really cpu intensive applications. scientific researchers use them alot for number crunching big mathimatical problems etc.
On both the LVS and OPENMOSIX websites they both give good enough descriptions on hew they work.

www.linuxvirtualserver.org/whatis.html


openmosix.sourceforge.net/#What



Hope this helps.

I have built openMosix cluster with 15 nodes. I use it for HPC lab. and now I want to compare openMosix with LVS (advantages and disadvantages among them) because I haven't had any experiences with LVS.
Please help me
Thanks

ronaldo

Ronaldo,

Wow, I wish I had the time and 15 computers to setup a cluster!
Did you manage to read the links I put in my post?
You need to understand that Load balancing and Clustering are two fundamentally different technologies. It’s not like comparing star office to ms office. BL’s and Clusters don’t work the same.

Clusters work as a virtual machine. If you send a cluster a big mathematical problem to solve, ALL the machines work TOGETHER calculating the problem. Clusters are really good for big data crunching and databases.

Now with load balancing you have a single box acting as the server (the load balancer)
When a request comes in to do something (depending on how you set it up) it does a round robin, i.e. if you have a farm of 3 machines the Load Balancer forwards the request to one of the farm boxes. 1st request goes to the 1 farm box 2nd to the 2nd, 3rd to the 3rd then 4th request goes back to the 1st farm box and so forth. The load balancer organizes all this. The boxes in a load balanced farm don’t know anything about the other machines whereas I think clusters do (because there one virtual machine!?). Load balancing is really great for something like HTTP with lots of little requests.

So load balanced farms have lots of little machines responding to there requests separately. Where as cluster is a big virtual machine doing it all itself. So in regards to advantages and disadvantages…. It’s really up to you and your situation (what you want to do and how you want to do it). LB’s and Clusters both have advantages and disadvantages; nobody can really say clusters or LB’s are better. Because they are two different ways of doing things, once again it depends on your situation.

I could write a lot more here about these two technologies (and I know there are a lot of IF’s and BUT’s and depending on how you configure it) but I just don’t have the time. This is my general thought on how they work. There is a lot of information if you do some reading on the internet about them. Now you mentioned HPC lab. Meaning High Performance Computing Lab right?
Well if that’s the case I don’t think load balancer is what you need. HPC in my mind means clusters pretty much

Hope this helps!

hmmz_2000,
Thanks for your help
I think openMosix cluster as a load-balancing system, but now I haven't known how many load-balancing system we have? And I want
to compare among them, and except openMosix, have another one ?
yes, My HPC lab,meaning High Performance Computing Lab. and openMosix is really really great, I use it to solve a very large mathematical problem, my applications take 48 hours.

Please help me.
My major is Physics not computer sciences so I've met many problem to choose a cluster.

Ronaldo