DHPC Technical Report DHPC-065
Cluster Computing with iMacs and Power Macintoshes
D.A. Grove, P.D. Coddington, K.A. Hawick and F.A. Vaughan
Archived: 8 March 1999
Published in Proc. of Parallel and Distributed Computing Systems
(PDCS'99), Fort Lauderdale, August 1999.
Abstract
We investigate the use of a cluster of networked Apple iMac or Power
Macintosh personal computers as a compute server for sequential and
parallel programs, and describe our experiences with a cluster of
iMacs used primarily for an undergraduate teaching laboratory. We
explore the support for cluster computing offered by the various
operating systems available for the Macintosh: MacOS 8; the upcoming
MacOS X which offers Unix functionality; and the recently available
LinuxPPC for the Macintosh. We present sequential and parallel
benchmark performance results for an iMac cluster, a Beowulf-style
Intel Pentium PC cluster, and a network of DEC Alpha workstations.
We compare the performance and price/performance of these systems,
and discuss some of the less quantifiable issues such as software
installation, ease of use, and system maintenance.
PDF version
PostScript version (gzip compressed)
An earlier preprint version of the paper is also available in
PDF or
Postscript form.
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