Big Science with a Small Budget: Non-Embarrassingly Parallel Applications in a Non-Dedicated Network of Workstations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how astronomers can perform large-scale computations cost-effectively by utilizing non-dedicated workstations through the Condor system and Master-Worker framework, replacing expensive dedicated clusters.

Contribution

It introduces a method for running large-scale astrophysical simulations on non-dedicated workstations using Condor and MW, avoiding the need for dedicated hardware.

Findings

Successful implementation of radiative transfer simulation on a non-dedicated network

Comparable performance to traditional dedicated clusters

Cost-effective alternative for large-scale scientific computing

Abstract

Many astronomers and astrophysicists require large computing resources for their research, which are usually obtained via dedicated (and expensive) parallel machines. Depending on the type of the problem to be solved, an alternative solution can be provided by creating dynamically a computer cluster out of non-dedicated workstations using the Condor High Throughput Computing System and the Master-Worker (MW) framework. As an example of this we show in this paper how a radiative transfer application previously coded with MPI is solved using this solution without the need for dedicated machines.