1. Comparative Study of Beowulf Clusters and Windows 2000 Clusters By Seshendranath Pitcha

2. Abstract This presentation focuses on the basics of clusters Its implementation in Beowulf and W2K and a comparative study of software in both. The scope of this study and presentation is vast and still in developmental stage specially the Beowulf. Presented here are just a few of the topics in this new and fast immerging area.

3. Introduction Extraordinary improvements over the past few years in microprocessors, memory, buses, networks, and software have made possible the collection of groups of inexpensive personal computers and workstations that in concert have processing power rivaling supercomputers Clusters of sixteen commodity microprocessor systems now achieve gigaflop-class performance at a total cost of under $50,000. As their prices decrease, it becomes more and more practical to build parallel computational systems from off-the-shelf components, rather than buying CPU time on very expensive systems.

4. A cluster is a type of parallel or distributed processing system, which consists of a collection of interconnected stand-alone computers cooperatively working together as a single, integrated computing resource What is a Cluster?

5. Beowulf concepts It was built by and for researchers with parallel programming experience Spreading to NASA and research communities “Why buy what you can afford to make” Beowulf is a class of Pile-of-PCs Cheap supercomputer power

6. What is Special about Beowulf Cluster Mass market commodity component Dedicated processors Dedicated private network No custom components Scalable I/O A freely available software base A design and improvement to community.

7. Beowulf Software PVM MPI Beowulf distributed process space Beowulf Ethernet channel bonding Pvmsyc EnFuzion

8. Windows 2K Cluster Cluster Concepts W2k cluster is a group of impendent computers that work together to run a common set of applications and provide single system to the client and application Cluster Service Resource, Online,Group NLB

10. W2K Cluster Service Node Manager Configuration database manager Resource manager/failover manager Event processor

11. Beowulf Application Performance Beowulf Application Performance Example of an Application: Photorealistic Rendering Model characteristics: Conference Room, Office, 37,220 objects, 24 lights:3,256 objects, 3 lights : In every case the Beowulf cluster is between 10% and 20% faster than the IBM-SP2, at 1/20th of the cost.

12. Symmetry The Beowulf cluster is more of a research oriented system its greatest triumph is its price-performance ratio.This system is not for every program,algorithm as it requires a lot of overhead to write or port existing an application on this system.It also may suffer from network and node-node latency. The W2K Cluster is commercial system which has been designed keeping the E-commerce and web market in mind.It’s much easier to install,run,manage and upgrade than a Beowulf. Its power is quite evident when a site has to be upgraded,balance the load or when the server crashes.