QLogic OFED+ Host Software User Guide, Rev. B

2 Step-by-Step Cluster Setup
and MPI Usage Checklists
Cluster Setup
This section describes how to set up your cluster to run high-performance
Message Passing Interface (MPI) jobs.
Perform the following tasks when setting up the cluster. These include BIOS,
adapter, and system settings.
1. Make sure that hardware installation has been completed according to the
instructions in the QLogic InfiniBand Adapter Hardware Installation Guide
and software installation and driver configuration has been completed
according to the instructions in the QLogic Fabric Software Installation
Guide. To minimize management problems, the compute nodes of the
cluster must have very similar hardware configurations and identical
software installations. See “Homogeneous Nodes” on page 3-26 for more
information.
2. Check that the BIOS is set properly according to the instructions in the
QLogic InfiniBand Adapter Hardware Installation Guide.
3. Set up the Distributed Subnet Administration (SA) to correctly synchronize
your virtual fabrics. See “QLogic Distributed Subnet Administration” on
page 3-13
4. Adjust settings, including setting the appropriate MTU size. See “Adapter
and Other Settings” on page 3-26.
5. Remove unneeded services. QLogic recommends turning irqbalance off.
See “Remove Unneeded Services” on page 3-28.
6. Disable powersaving features. See “Disable Powersaving Features” on
page 3-29.
7. Check other performance tuning settings. See “Performance Settings and
Management Tips” on page 3-25.
8. If using Intel ® processors, turn off Hyper-Threading. See “Hyper-Threading”
on page 3-29.
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