[Beowulf] What's the category of Beowulf among Clusters?

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 19 Dec 2008, Lux, James P wrote:

> Beowulf -> the definition evolves.. But.. I'd say it's a bunch of
> interconnected commodity computers intended to form a single computational
> resource. Some would add "running open source software" Commodity is

Some would, and it absolutely is in the original definition and perhaps
even worth fighting for, or about.  Not necessarily ONLY open source
software, but the operating system should be open source if nothing
else.

> important. It's not special purpose hardware, but leverages the economies of
> scale to minimize cost.  Bunch of interconnected is important.(no vector
> processors).  Single computational resource -> you can devote the entire

No SINGLE vector processors.  A cluster of systems containing vector
processors is just fine...;-)


   rgb

> cluster to  just one problem, as opposed to, say, a mass of transaction
> processing boxes or web servers in a high availability cluster.
>
>
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Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu