[Beowulf] The Walmart Compute Node?

[Mark Hahn]

>>> Get loads of ram, vmware-server and BINGO! you have a cluster!
>> 
>> But this isn't a cluster - it's enterprise masturbation. We're talking 
>
> And as noted, it may be a reasonable way to build a dynamically
> repurposeable cluster intended to run certain classes of EP or not

do people really do this with jobs so short that it wouldn't 
make more sense to just netboot a custom image?  then you get 
full-on native performance, but you probably don't want to try
repurposing more than a few times/hour.  heck, even if you did,
just use kexec rather than rebooting, and I think you could 
come up in a new image close to as fast as a VM would start.

IMO, VM's are mainly about isolation (and, for commercial low-duty-cycle
applications, overcommittment for better utilization.)