by: Dan Fenton and Sam Hosig

What is cluster computing?Why have cluster computing?Applications of cluster computersHistory Examples of clusters◦ Beowulf◦ ALICEDifference from GridDifference from super computersSpeed implicationsFuture of cluster computers

A group of low end computers that are connected via high speed LAN’sEach node runs its own operating systemCan be as simple as two personal computers or a very fast super computer

More processing powerMainly for people who need more processing for their own algorithms that one computer couldn’t handleSome Applications:◦ Animated movies◦ Swarm intelligence modeling◦ Stock prediction algorithms◦ Trying to predict the future with complex

environments

VLSI DesignComputational PhysicsAstrophysicsBioinformaticsBiomolecular simulation: Protein foldingData mining and Data-intensive computing

Said to have started in the 1960’s by customers who couldn’t fit all of their work on one computerArguably started in 1967 by Gene AmdahlFirst commercial cluster was developed in 1977VAXcluster was released in 1984Was in the same time frame that super computers started being released

Main node connected to the outside worldSwitching connects to other computers in the clusterSwitch sends information to all machines or just certain machines besides the main node

BeowulfALICE IBM ClusterVAXClusterSystem XdistccMPICH

Original Beowulf computer was built by Thomas Sterling and Donald Decker at NASA in 1994Normally run Unix-like operating systems:◦ BSD Linux or SolarisUsed world wide, mainly for scientific computing

Performs as a single system rather than a network of many nodesThe Master Node is the only access point to the systemAll Cluster Nodes are dumb and only do what the Master Node instructs them to do. They have no peripheral devices

A Beowulf cluster is being used at CALTECH◦ Configuration:

Server: Dual Processor Xeon 400 (2MB Cache) with 512 MB’s of RAMNodes: 8 Intel Pentium 4 2.40 GHzMemory: 4 GB (512MB’s of RAM per node)Switch: Intel Express 510T 10/100

Alpha-Linux-Cluster-EngineWas retired in 2000Example of a Beowulf cluster25 regular computers hooked together24 cluster nodes, 1 master nodeRan Linux Red Hat

Grid Clusters

Grid computing is heterogeneousGrid computing can be spread out over a large areaEvery node is autonomous and has its own task manager

Cluster computing is homogenousCluster computing usually contained in a single spaceBehaves as a single system and has one task manager to handle all task

Super Computers Cluster Computers

Proprietary OS Custom NetworksBig Iron MachinesCustom memoryCustom messaging between nodesCustom made CPUs

Royalty-free OSTypical everyday network solutionsCommodity supercomputers lower costRegular machine memoryGeneral Purpose processors

407 of the Top 500 fastest computers where cluster computersTop cluster computer operates at 10510 TFLOPS/s with theoretical speed of 11280.4 TFLOPS/sFor comparison, an average laptop runs at about 50 GFLOPS

Continue to save on computing costsWill be used to accurately predict weather up to 2 weeksWill reach the Peta FLOP (PFLOP) levelWill continue to improve as commodity machines improve their performance

Any Questions???