Specifications

Platform Availability
gridMathematica is available for all common Linux and Unix systems, Windows, and Mac OS X. For more information, see the supported platforms for Mathematica. Computers in the cluster do not have to run the same operating system. For a cluster consisting of separate computers, the machines need to be able to communicate with each other over TCP/IP.

Examples of Hardware for gridMathematica

• Pentium II or compatible
• Apple Xserve
• HP AlphaServer
• HP Integrity
• HP 9000
• IBM eServer p5
• Orion Multisystems DT-12/DS-96
• SGI Altix
• SGI Origin
• Sun Fire

gridMathematica also supports homogeneous and mixed Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X clusters.

Networks

• Required: TCP/IP
• Supported: Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and Firewire (IEEE 1394)
• Also supported: Myrinet, Infiniband, Quadratrics

gridMathematica uses standard TCP/IP to communicate between nodes, but it is independent of the actual network infrastructure. As a result, gridMathematica can take advantage of infrastructures such as Myrinet and fiber-based networks to increase bandwidth and decrease latency during high-communication computations over the more common Ethernet and copper-based networks.

Other Requirements
You need to be able to perform remote execution to launch Mathematica on computers in the cluster. Standard ways of doing this are through RSH, REXEC, or SSH.

Components
Mathematica, Parallel Computing Toolkit, MathLM

Licensing
Each gridMathematica unit comes with eight kernel processes, one front-end process, one Parallel Computing Toolkit, and one MathLM license manager. One MathLM is needed for each cluster or grid.