The History of Clustering

What is computer clustering? Computer clustings is when a group of computers are linked together operating as one, sharing resources and tasks. This is done through various network connections, but most commonly through the use of lans.

Purpose of clustering Utilize several computer's resources at once create a cost effective alternative to buying a single powerful computer Allows for more powerful multitasking

Who invented clustering? formally invented by Gene Amdahl of IBM in o wrote a paper on parralel processing. Infomally around the early 1960s by consumers who required more resources from their machines. Lead to the invention of... o LAN o Internet o Multiple processors

Types of Clustering High Availability (HA) Clusters Load Balancing Clusters Compute Clusters Grid Computing

High Availability (HA) Clusters Are also known as Failover clusters Improve services provided Redundant nodes, so if one fails then others take it's place Commons size is 2 nodes, which is also the minimum required for redundancy Obviously used to prevent single point failures

Load Balancing Clusters Multiple Machines linked together to form a virtual cluster A large project is managed by splitting the work load over these multiple machines in an effort to increase the speed of the process An example would be Kazaa file sharing software

Compute Clusters Obviously used for computational operations rather than I/O operations like web services or databases Examples are weather or vehicle crashes Frequent communication requiring dedicated network, densely located and has homogenous nodes; Referred to as a Beowulf cluster

Grid Computing A larger scale cluster, more heterogeneous and incorporates unrelated organizations for more of a computing utility These nodes, unlike previously mentioned nodes, do not need to directly communicate because they are preforming independent jobs project, used for research on Alzheimer's and cancer project, possibly the largest Grid known and it is used for research of the Arecibo Observatory radiotelescope in hopes to find aliens