QCIF (QPAC name already taken)

Access Grid

• video conferencing
• sharing of applications
  • shared web browser
  • shared open office
  • remote sensing
• screen gets cluttered very quickly
• lack of screen real estate
  • use more then one screen per site
  • even this may be insufficient

Scaling images down in size may remove details that may be important for some applications. e.g. medical.

OptIPortal

• OptIPuter = Internet Protocol + Optical network
• eg. 7x5 30” LCD screens.

Simple tiled display

Limitation:

• number of outputs per graphics cards
• number of graphics cards you can fit in
• may need to mix different bus types

Solution:

• Use output from multiple machines. Cluster type display

Cluster tiled display

multiple adjacent machines from multiple computers

Rocks distribution

• great installation program. Builds network for you.
• Intended for CPU clusters, not display clusters
• Based on CentOS.
• Slow release schedule
• Don’t recommend doing regular updates.
• No security updates.
• Doesn’t support more then one graphics card per machine.
• Network model not ideal for shared graphics, as machines are on private network.
• multicast only available on private network.

Front end machine

• does all the controlling
• connects to private switch for driving displays
• another network connection to LAN
• display machines connected to private LAN

Graphics systems

DMX

• Distributed Multihead X
• Runs applications normally
• Some limitations of accelerated graphics
• Limit to number of nodes. Not scalable.

SAGE

• Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (EVIL)
• streams pixels
• put RGB values into buffer
• SAGE spreads out to machines as required
• size of buffer, number of machines, number of videos - bandwidth may be a problem
• Can move video between sites (good)
• Configuration by hand. Still in development.
• Configuation automated in Rocks 5)
• Not really suitable.

CGLX

• Clustered GLX (CGLX)
• Only distributed as a binary RPM for Rocks.

Our solution

Put all computers on LAN

4K = new video format = 4 * HD

SC08 - network only up and running with 4K support on last day (Friday).