Well, what can you do with spare motherboards? Build a cluster and run Linux! Walton Yantis' students have been collaborating in this effort.

So this was in phases. Hmm. The phases contine.

ISI Grid Pioneer Wins Honorary Degree
Readings on Diskless Clusters:
1) Auto-Assimilating Diskless Cluster HOWTO
2) Advantages of openMosix on IBM xSeries, Part 1
3) ClusterFLOP
4) STREAM Benchmark Reference Information
5) HPC Challenge
6) shmux software
7) tentakel software
8) SUN Grid Engine project
9) Condor Project

Phase 1: Gather Hardware. Yantis noticed that there were many boxes sitting around that had motherboards in them, and asked for them. Got all of them. Next, we needed video, network card, RAM, and power supplies.

Phase 2: Get hardware into lab. After moving all of the equipment into the lab, students got interested.

Phase 3: Design. This was tough, and took many hours to realize that we couldn't continue with our original idea of a cylinder, having five blades on two levels, with a center tube containing wiring.

Phase 4: Power. These motherboards need power, and it is impractical to install 10 power supplies into the box. Experiment 1 takes place: Power two motherboards with one power supply. SUCCESS!

Phase 5: Redesign. This was even tougher, and Ben graduated. He's now working in Round Rock in a cluster lab at Perseus. Fortunately, Nick and Daniel have become interested in the project. We get motivated, and decide to create a "tower of power" on the way to Home Depot. We shopped for a while, and brainstormed at the same time. Someone presented the idea of using risers to separate the motherboards. We purchased 3' long "allthread" - (The all of the unit is thread. One student called this item a dowell, and another described the part as allthread), and other assorted hardware to create this. (The feet are cabinet knobs)

Phase 6: Network. How to connect these things together? How can we add flair to the project? Nick and Daniel cruise newegg, and come up with a list of hardware.

Phase7: Management. Red Tape is easy to come by around here, but our Department Chair cuts through, approves the purchase recommendation, and we order the "wish list"

Phase 8: Summer Break. Yantis takes the summer off, does some work for Dell.

Phase 9: Rejuvination. Fall of 2005, The "wish list" has arrived, and we still haven't decided on making the case. The 24" diameter, 3' long Acrylic tube idea is impractical ($1000 just for the plastic). We take another trip to the store. Brown's hardware, a local outfit has nice MDF shelving that happens to be the exact width of the motherboards, and is 4' long. Some other students have become interested in the project, and start participating. Gorilla glue is brought up multiple times.

Phase 10: Create the box. Using a jig-saw, a drill, and some nice screws, we come up with an enclosure that will support all of the weight of the motherboards, contain the Enermax power supplies, and is compact at only 12"x12".

We drilled airflow holes for each of the motherboards, attached the old CPU fans to the case with epoxy, gorrilla glued the hard disk enclosure, and started work on soldering up a switch system for the motherboards.

Phase 11: Ethernet. After careful planning, we learned that we didn't have a space for the Gigabit Ethernet switch. Yantis gets another shelf, and a level is added to the top of the box to contain the switch. Gorilla Glue is useful.

Phase 12: Power. Wiring harnesses for the motherboards are soldered together using the connectors from old AOpen 250 watt power supplies.

Phase 13: Power. Time to power up!