DHPC Talk DHPCT-035
Beowulf - A New Hope for Parallel Computing?
Ken Hawick
Archived: 31 April 1999
Presented at the 6th IDEA Workshop, Rutherglen, January 1999.
Abstract
The Beowulf model for clusters of computers has become very popular over the last year, particularly amongst university research groups and other organisations less able to justify
large procurements. The Beowulf concept is usually applied to clusters of Personal Computers running Linux, but other platforms and operating systems can also be considered as
providing similar functionality. We discuss the criteria for what constitutes a Beowulf cluster, describe our initial experiments with prototype clusters of PCs and iMACs, and review
possibilities for construction of a large well-networked system.
We have experimented with the configuration and set up of a heterogeneous cluster of PCs on various network fabrics including conventional and fast ethernet. Design of a scalable
network structure is particularly important for a scalable system. We discuss some options for using switch-based infrastructure built from off the shelf switch components.
A range of economic as well as technical issues complicate the design of a suitable Beowulf system for a given set of applications. We consider two major requirements scenarios:
running a large number of serial applications; and running a small number of highly parallel applications. Of particular interest to us is the situation where individual nodes must be heavily
configured with disk and memory.
A number of parallel computing research issues seem particularly relevant to Beowulf clusters, including those of fault tolerance, scheduling and dynamic problem decomposition. We
describe our ongoing research activities in these areas and speculate over the impact Beowulf style clusters will have on parallel computing.
Powerpoint version of the slides
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