Beowulf (cluster)
Beowulf is a cluster that runs under the free Linux or BSD operating system . There are now also special Linux versions for clusters such as ClusterKnoppix .
Beowulf is not the name for a specific software, but rather describes the structure of the cluster, which consists of networked commercially available personal computers (Class I cluster, see also Off-The-Shelf-Computer ) or of specialized hardware (Class 2 cluster) . The individual computers communicate via IP . Software such as Message Passing Interface and PVM enable computing operations to be divided up. The performance can be increased by adding more computers.
The "Beowulf Project" was launched in 1994 by Donald Becker and Thomas Sterling to develop an alternative to supercomputers that was both inexpensive and powerful . Today Beowulf computers are z. B. used for research at universities. So z. B. the computer center of the TU Chemnitz the Beowulf cluster "CLIC", which was installed by the Chemnitzer Megware in 2000. This went out of service in the summer of 2007 because it was replaced by a new high-performance computer.
Web links
- Official website of Beowulf
- Debian Beowulf - Special Beowulf port from Debian GNU / Linux