Beowulf Clusters
Beowulf Clusters
Beowulf clusters were created in the early 1990s by two NASA employee’s, Donald Becker, and Thomas Sterling, to serve their computational needs. They did this by connecting multiple personal computers on a local network that ran on free open source software. This cluster of interconnected computers allowed them to solve task that normally only a supercomputer could perform.
Beowulf clusters yield supercomputer performance at a fraction of the cost. They are relatively inexpensive to create since they use commodity hardware, such as personal computers. They also use free open source software such as Linux, to serve as their operating system. Clusters achieve multi-instruction-multi-data multiprocessing by using multiple systems, known as nodes, which are joined together. These nodes are connected via a local area network, which allows them to communicate with one another. These systems are capable of running an application simultaneously on all nodes of the cluster, which in turn, significantly increases performance of the system. However, applications have to be specifically written to utilize all of the computers of the cluster. This is done through parallelization, which is a program that is divided into separate components that run in parallel on individual node of the cluster.
Beowulf clusters also yield high availability since each node of the cluster can monitor another over LAN. If one computer fails, another can take over whatever task that computer was performing without much of an interruption.
In closing, I have learned how Beowulf clusters can offer supercomputer performance, as well as high-availability to the user at a fraction of the cost of a modern supercomputer.
Works Cited
Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne. Operating Systems Concepts. John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 2010.
Meeker, Ralph D. Comparative System Preformance for a Beowulf Cluster October 2005: 1-5.
Works Cited
Abraham
Beowulf clusters were created in the early 1990s by two NASA employee’s, Donald Becker, and Thomas Sterling, to serve their computational needs. They did this by connecting multiple personal computers on a local network that ran on free open source software. This cluster of interconnected computers allowed them to solve task that normally only a supercomputer could perform.
Beowulf clusters yield supercomputer performance at a fraction of the cost. They are relatively inexpensive to create since they use commodity hardware, such as personal computers. They also use free open source software such as Linux, to serve as their operating system. Clusters achieve multi-instruction-multi-data multiprocessing by using multiple systems, known as nodes, which are joined together. These nodes are connected via a local area network, which allows them to communicate with one another. These systems are capable of running an application simultaneously on all nodes of the cluster, which in turn, significantly increases performance of the system. However, applications have to be specifically written to utilize all of the computers of the cluster. This is done through parallelization, which is a program that is divided into separate components that run in parallel on individual node of the cluster.
Beowulf clusters also yield high availability since each node of the cluster can monitor another over LAN. If one computer fails, another can take over whatever task that computer was performing without much of an interruption.
In closing, I have learned how Beowulf clusters can offer supercomputer performance, as well as high-availability to the user at a fraction of the cost of a modern supercomputer.
Works Cited
Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne. Operating Systems Concepts. John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 2010.
Meeker, Ralph D. Comparative System Preformance for a Beowulf Cluster October 2005: 1-5.
Works Cited
Abraham
Bibliography: Abraham Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin, Greg Gagne. Operating Systems Concepts. John Wiley & Sons. Inc., 2010. Meeker, Ralph D. "Comparative System Preformance for a Beowulf Cluster." Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges (October 2005): 1-5.