[Beowulf] Differenz between a Grid and a Cluster???

[Leif Nixon]

Mark Hahn <hahn at physics.mcmaster.ca> writes:

> grids are based on the absolutely mistaken premise that computing 
> is commodified and generic.  you just arrange the plumbing and the 
> flops will flow to whereever they're needed.  I've never quite been
> clear on whether gridophiles believe this, and understand that there
> are different instruction sets, different cache sizes, different clocks,
> different sizes and speeds of memory, etc.  maybe they're simply 
> comfortable working with the least common denominator - a portable 
> language like java/perl/etc and nothing but embarassingly parallel codes.

A nice use case is to use grid stuff to get a uniform way to access
preinstalled applications, locally tuned according to the
idiosyncrasies of the local systems.

-- 
Leif Nixon                       -            Systems expert
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National Supercomputer Centre    -      Linkoping University
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