0,000,000 for cluster computing

[Alan Scheinine]

I attended a class on system administration of the IBM SP computer.
I maintain computers for research and I found the people who
maintain computers for accounting departments are from another
universe.  With regard to cluster reliability, the statement of
high reliability for a Microsoft cluster uses the language from
that other universe.  For me, personally, I am interested in
how to deal with many computers for a relatively low cost and
with few people available for trouble shooting, so the type of
discussions in the Beowulf mailing list are very useful.  On the
other hand, I don't think the high reliability claims are
misleading, they are simply speaking an entirely different language,
that of an accounting department of a very large company for which
any down time is very costly.  Of course, such a point of view,
when coming from a university certainly is a source of confusion.
Alan