6.9 Summary

This section has described description-based and image based installers. In particular the Rocks and OSCAR toolkits were discussed in some detail. Readers should recall the physical planning of cluster layout and trunking of cables leads to a more reliable physical design. Also, real clusters are never homogeneous in function and rarely are they homogeneous in hardware configuration. Finally, setup and installation is never done just once and is intimately tied to the style of management of the administrator. Having a solid setup and initial software provisioning plan will allow you to get the more interesting part of clusters—using them for productive work.