[Beowulf] commercial clusters

[Jim Lux]

At 06:56 AM 9/29/2006, Geoff Jacobs wrote:
>Vincent Diepeveen wrote:
> > If it was possible to build your own cluster in easy manner and then run
> > for
> > example a chessprogram at it in a user friendly way,
> > there would be 100k+ clusters right now of 64 cpu's and more.
>
>I think you maybe overestimate the number of chess players who can
>challenge existing chess programs on their standard PC. I also think you
>overestimate the number of chess players with ~$10k to blow on a cluster.

Vincent's example of chess players may be a bit overblown, but his 
point is very well taken.  There are an enormous number of people who 
could use "big computation" if it were "easy to use" and "cheap 
enough".  $10K is a significant price point.  Aside from traditional 
consumers of such things (research labs, etc.) $10K is low enough 
that it is almost a consumer item, albeit probably not mass market in 
the millions of sales context.



Jim