[clug] Distributing a large file to many servers

[Richard]

Cameron Patrick wrote:

>Last I looked, MPICH's implementation of MPI_Bcast didn't actually use
>ethernet broadcasts even over a local network, so it wouldn't really
>give ideal performance.
>  
>
That's what I found. broad/multicast implementations of MPI seem 
extremely rare. I have a slight fetish for multicast, and take a 
moderate interest in all things involving one-to-many messaging.

>Norton Ghost (which is proprietary) does that kind of thing, but I'm not
>aware of anything free and unixy that will.
>  
>
There's the mcl suite of tools that fit the bill exactly. Funny French 
people wrote it, but it still has all the right things to put my mind at 
rest. See http://www.inrialpes.fr/planete/people/roca/mcl/mcl.html
fcast, flute, and robcast are the ones you probably want. Very nifty.

I've not used it, but it seems others have. YMMV

For a different spin, I was ecouraged to read about dnbd which seems to 
have all the right answers for all the wrong reasons (IMHO); which saves 
me writing it, assuming he'll distribute, it's licensed in a friendly 
manner, etc. 
http://www.ks.uni-freiburg.de/download/diplomarbeit/WS05/01-DNBD-Linux-ThZitterell/01-DNBD-ThZ.pdf

Richard