A Beowulf cluster is a

computer cluster A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The comp ...

of what are normally identical, commodity-grade computers networked into a small

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

with libraries and programs installed which allow processing to be shared among them. The result is a high-performance parallel computing cluster from inexpensive

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tech ...

hardware. The name ''Beowulf'' originally referred to a specific computer built in 1994 by

Thomas Sterling Thomas Sterling (February 21, 1851August 26, 1930) was an American lawyer, politician, and academic who served as a member of the United States Senate and the first dean of the University of South Dakota College of Law. A Republican, he se ...

and Donald Becker at

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

. The name "Beowulf" comes from the Old English epic poem of the same name. No particular piece of software defines a cluster as a Beowulf. Typically only

free and open source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

is used, both to save cost and to allow customisation. Most Beowulf clusters run a

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating system, such as BSD,

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

, or Solaris. Commonly used parallel processing libraries include Message Passing Interface (MPI) and

Parallel Virtual Machine Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a software tool for parallel networking of computers. It is designed to allow a network of heterogeneous Unix and/or Windows machines to be used as a single distributed parallel processor. Thus large computati ...

(PVM). Both of these permit the programmer to divide a task among a group of networked computers, and collect the results of processing. Examples of MPI software include Open MPI or MPICH. There are additional MPI implementations available. Beowulf systems operate worldwide, chiefly in support of

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

. Since 2017, every system on the

Top500 The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non- distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these updates always coinc ...

list of the world's fastest supercomputers has used Beowulf software methods and a

operating system. At this level, however, most are by no means just assemblages of commodity hardware; custom design work is often required for the nodes (often

blade server A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, wh ...

s), the networking and the cooling systems.

Development

A description of the Beowulf cluster, from the original "how-to", which was published by Jacek Radajewski and Douglas Eadline under the Linux Documentation Project in 1998:

Operating systems

a number of

Linux distribution A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading on ...

s, and at least one BSD, are designed for building Beowulf clusters. These include: * MOSIX, geared toward computationally intensive, IO-low applications * ClusterKnoppix, based on

Knoppix KNOPPIX ( ) is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB), one of the first live operating system distributions (just after Yggdrasil Linux). Knoppix was developed b ...

Kerrighed Kerrighed is an open source single-system image (SSI) cluster software project. The project started in October 1998 at the Paris research group The French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control. From 2006 to 2011, the pro ...

* Rocks Cluster Distribution *

DragonFly BSD DragonFly BSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system forked from FreeBSD 4.8. Matthew Dillon, an Amiga developer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and FreeBSD developer between 1994 and 2003, began working on DragonFly BSD in ...

* Quantian, a live DVD with scientific applications, based on Knoppix and ClusterKnoppix * Kentucky Linux Athlon Testbed * PelicanHPC, based on Debian Live A cluster can be set up by using Knoppix bootable CDs in combination with OpenMosix. The computers will automatically link together, without need for complex configurations, to form a Beowulf cluster using all CPUs and RAM in the cluster. A Beowulf cluster is scalable to a nearly unlimited number of computers, limited only by the overhead of the network. Provisioning of operating systems and other software for a Beowulf Cluster can be automated using software, such as Open Source Cluster Application Resources. OSCAR installs on top of a standard installation of a supported Linux distribution on a cluster's head node.

References

Bibliography

* ''Beowulf Cluster Computing With Windows'' by Thomas Lawrence Sterling 2001 MIT Press * ''Beowulf Cluster Computing With Linux'' by Thomas Lawrence Sterling 2001 MIT Press

External links

The Beowulf Cluster Site
*
A detailed description of building a Beowulf cluster
{{Authority control Cluster computing Parallel computing Job scheduling NASA spin-off technologies Unix software

Development

Operating systems

See also

References

Bibliography

External links