Abstract

What are Clusters?

A cluster is a type of parallel or distributed processing system, which consists of a collection of interconnected stand-alone computers cooperatively working together as a single, integrated computing resource.

This cluster of computers shares common network characteristics like the same namespace and it is available to other computers on the network as a single resource. These computers are linked together using high-speed network interfaces between themselves and the actual binding together of the all the individual computers in the cluster is performed by the operating system and the software used.

Motivation for Clustering

High cost of 'traditional' High Performance Computing.

Clustering using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) is way cheaper than buying specialized machines for computing. Cluster computing has emerged as a result of the convergence of several trends, including the availability of inexpensive high performance microprocessors and high-speed networks, and the development of standard software tools for high performance distributed computing.

Increased need for High Performance Computing

As processing power becomes available, applications which require enormous amount of processing, like weather modeling are becoming more common place requiring the high performance computing provided by Clusters.

BEOWULF CLUSTER

BEOWULF Cluster is a kind of high-performance massively parallel computer built primarily out of commodity hardware components, running a free-software operating system like Linux or Free BSD, interconnected by a private high-speed network.

Basically, the Beowulf architecture is a multi-computer architecture that is used for parallel computation applications. Therefore, Beowulf clusters are primarily meant only for processor-intensive and number-crunching applications and definitely not for storage applications. Primarily, a Beowulf cluster consists of a server computer that controls the functioning of many client nodes that are connected together with Ethernet or any other network comprising of a network of switches or hubs. One good feature of Beowulf is that all the system's components are available from off-the-shelf component and there is no special hardware that is required to implement it. It also uses commodity software - most often Linux - and other commonly available components like Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) and Messaging Passing Interface (MPI).

Besides serving all the client nodes in the Beowulf cluster, the server node also acts as a gateway to external users and passes files to the Beowulf system. The server is also used to drive the console of the system from where the various parameters and configuration can be monitored. In some cases, especially in very large Beowulf configurations, there is sometimes more than one server node with other specialized nodes that perform tasks like monitoring stations and additional consoles. In disk-less configurations, very often, the individual client nodes do not even know their own addresses until the server node informs them

The major difference between the Beowulf clustering system and the more commonly implemented Cluster of Workstations (CoW) is the fact that Beowulf systems tend to appear as an entire unit to the external world and not as individual workstations. In most cases, the individual workstations do not even have a keyboard, mouse or monitor and are accessed only by remote login or through a console terminal. In fact, a Beowulf node can be conceptualized as a CPU+memory package that can be plugged into the Beowulf system - much like would be done with a motherboard.

References

http://stonesoup.esd.ornl.gov/
http://extremelinux.esd.ornl.gov/
http://www.beowulf.org/
http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/research/beowulf/
http://beowulf-underground.org/

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