By Chi-Chang Chen

 Cluster computing is a technique of linking two or more computers into a network (usually through a local area network) in order to take advantage of the parallel processing power of those computers  A parallel program running on the Computer Cluster (Network of workstations and personal computers)  A type of parallel computing  Interconnect computers as a computing platform

 Beowulf Clusters (1993) ◦ A project started at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1993 ◦ Low-cost computers (Intel 486) using commodity interconnects (Ethernet) with free OS (Linux) The typical setup of a Beowulf cluster

 Workstations and PCs are readily available at low cost  The latest processors can easily be incorporated into the system  Existing application software can be used or modified  Free parallel programming library – MPI (Message Passing Interface) or PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine)

 Scalability ◦ Perhaps the greatest advantage of computer clusters is the scalability they offer. ◦ While mainframe computers have a fixed processing capacity, computer clusters can be easily expanded as requirements change by adding additional nodes to the network

 Top 500 List of World’s Supercomputers  Supercomputers in Taiwan (June 2011)