CentOS - Apr 2010 - Announce: Node Assassin - Open hardware cluster fence device

Hi CentOS folks!

   A few days ago, I announced this to the Linux-Clustering mailing 
list. I think it might be of interest to some on this list, too, as most 
people who use CentOS are more "roll your own" types. This project was
actually developed and tested on CentOS 5.4 x86_64. :)

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   I wanted to announce a new open hardware, open source cluster fence 
device:

   Node Assassin - http://nodeassassin.org

   After four months and a lot of help from friends at 
http://hacklab.to, the first version is done and ready for the lime 
light! (warts and all)

   It fully implements the FenceAgentAPI, including independent sensing 
of a Node's on/off status. There is a simple installer and uninstaller 
that has been tested on CentOS 5.x and should work on any system 
supporting Red Hat style clustering.

   It is built as a shield for the Arduino development platform and uses 
entirely "off the shelf" parts that can be ordered online or bought at
most electronic parts shops. The software and build instructions are 
fully documented.

   The goal of this project is to let people build very inexpensive 
clusters on commodity hardware. The current version supports four nodes. 
If you want more nodes, simply build a second Node Assassin! The fence 
agent supports multiple simultaneous Node Assassins. It would also work 
wonderfully as a secondary fence device.

   This is my first "official" open source project, so I would love to
hear some feedback even if you don't plan to use it yourself. :)

   If you don't want to build your own, I am working with an embedded 
systems engineer in the hope of having pre-built units available in the 
next few months. They will support 8 to 64 nodes each depending on the 
model. If you think you would be interested in this, please let me know. 
Whether these see the light of day or not largely depends on the 
feedback I get.

   Thanks for your time reading this!

-- 
Digimer
E-Mail:         linux at alteeve.com
AN!Whitepapers: http://alteeve.com
Node Assassin:  http://nodeassassin.org