1. Cluster Computing Slides by: Kale Law

2. Cluster Computing Definition Uses Advantages Design Types of Clusters Connection Types Physical Cluster Interconnects Examples Sources

3. Definition A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and/or availability over that provided by a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.

4. Uses Medicine / Biochemistry (molecular level simulations)‏ Weather forecasting (ocean current simulation)‏ Engineering problems (car crash simulation etc.)‏ Genetics Research (human genome project)‏ Physics (Quantum simulations)‏

5. Advantages Supercomputers are expensive when measured using $/MFlops Workstations are cheap Supercomputers from workstations are cheap (but they may be hard to program)‏ Commercial Of The Shelf (COTS) components May grow infinitely large If one processor fails then the rest survives

6. Design Which network to use?  Latency  Bandwidth  Price Which CPU architecture to use?  Performance (FP)‏  Price Which node architecture to use?  Performance: local and remote communication  Price Space Considerations  Cooling/ventilation  Power required

7. Types of Clusters High Performance Clusters  Beowulf; 1000 nodes; parallel programs; MPI Load-leveling Clusters  Move processes around to borrow cycles (eg. Mosix)‏ Web-Service Clusters  LVS; load-level tcp connections; Web pages and applications Storage Clusters  parallel filesystems; same view of data from each node Database Clusters  Oracle Parallel Server;

8. Connection Types WAN  ’infinite distance’ LAN  Few kilometers SAN  Few meters

9. Physical Cluster Interconnects FastEther Gigabit EtherNet 10 Gigabit EtherNet ATM cLan Myrinet Memory Channel SCI Atoll ServerNet

10. Examples of cluster computing Beowulf Clusters  NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 1993  Readily available low cost components, low cost interconnects  Best cost/performance ratio  Used today Berkeley NOW  Network Of Workstations  Early example of cluster computing STFX cs sun cluster Sony Playstation 3  Protein gene sequencing

11. Sources Check out http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/tfcc/vol1no 1-dialog.html for an interesting discussion on the topic http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/tfcc/vol1no 1-dialog.html http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/vinte r/CC/ http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/vinte r/CC/ Wikipedia