Transient "Beowulf" cluster of Erlang nodes.

[Mickael Remond]

Peter-Henry Mander <erlang@REDACTED> writes:

> Hi y'all,
>
> I have a small project in mind, and would like to know whether someone
> has done it before, and if so, how?
>
> I intend to harness the redundant processing power of our office PCs
> as a pool of Erlang nodes while everyone is out (overnight or over the
> weekend, hence "transient Beowulf cluster") and carry out some stress
> tests on our product using the office PC cluster to share the
> processing load. The scheme is to create a Knoppix
> (http://www.knoppix.net) style boot CD-ROM containing R9B that is
> inserted into the appropriated PCs, which are rebooted or turned on
> and left to boot up without any further intervention.

I had such a project regarding this topics that was called Erwolf.
This was basically the same idea + everything needed as a complete
Erlang development environnement. The idea was:
1. Being able to build an Erlang set of node quickly and automatically
on a rather large number of machines.
2. To have everything Erlang on the go: you can boot the CD everywhere
and have a complete and working development environment.
I can find my CD image and put it back online.

It was difficult to maintain has it was based on Linux from
Scratch. Updating the CD with new software was a pain.

Now there is Knoppix and I think this is the way to go.
If you want to lead the initiative I will help you.

If you feel confortable with it, I propose to open a dedicated area on
Erlang project, for this Erlang/Linux based distribution.

-- 
Mickaël Rémond
http://www.erlang-projects.org/