Subject: Re: Beowolf cluster
From: Christopher E. Brown (cbrown@woods.net)
Date: Tue Mar 19 2002 - 15:18:16 AKST
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002, Craig Callender wrote:
>
> A Beowulf cluster practices distributed processing. Rather than having 24
> CPUs in one computer, you have 24 computers all networked together and you
> have a couple masters that tell the slaves what to do. That's the jist of
> it. I believe Slashdot had some articles on them, if you search through
> the older stuff.
Specificly Beowulf defines tightly clustered group of machines
featuring one or more private network interconnects, constructed out
of commodity hardware, managed and connected to the outside world by
one (rarely 2) control stations, and running a free OS, usually Linux
or Free/Net/Open BSD.
This is as opposed to the PoPCs or NoW models of commodity computing.
(Pile Of PCs, stack em up, slap em on a network)
(Network of Workstations, everyones desktops)
PoPCs and NoW systems often run the same software and extensions as a
Beo, but for most tasks the performance is an order of mag different.
Kinda like building a car out of whatever is lying in the yard, and
getting one built by an F1 racing team. They are both a car, but...
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