NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Beowulf (computing)

Beowulf is a design for high-performance parallel computing clusters on inexpensive personal computer hardware. Originally developed by Thomas Sterling and Donald Becker at NASA, Beowulf systems are now deployed worldwide, chiefly in support of scientific computing. Download high resolution version (1104x1064, 401 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (1104x1064, 401 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... McGill University is a publicly funded, co-educational research university located in the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. ... It has been suggested that Radio pulsar be merged into this article or section. ... Parallel computing is the simultaneous execution of the same task (split up and specially adapted) on multiple processors in order to obtain results faster. ... An example of a Computer cluster A computer cluster is a group of tightly coupled computers that work together closely so that in many respects they can be viewed as though they are a single computer. ... Thomas Sterling is an internationally recognized supercomputing expert who is considered the father of Beowulf Clusters along with Donald Becker. ... Donald Becker is a notable developer well known for writing many of the Ethernet drivers for the Linux operating system. ... The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an agency of the United States federal government, responsible for the nations public space program. ... Scientific computing (or computational science) is the field of study concerned with constructing mathematical models and numerical solution techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific and engineering problems. ...

A Beowulf cluster is a group of usually identical PC computers running a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Unix-like operating system, such as BSD, Linux or Solaris. They are networked into a small TCP/IP LAN, and have libraries and programs installed which allow processing to be shared among them. From the early 90s onward, alternative terms for free software have come into common use, with much debate in the free software community. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIXÂ®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ... Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD, sometimes called Berkeley Unix) is the Unix derivative distributed by the University of California, Berkeley, starting in the 1970s. ... Linux (IPA pronunciation: ) is a Unix-like computer operating system. ... Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. ... The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols that implement the protocol stack on which the Internet runs. ... LOCAL AREA NETWORK Local area network scheme A local area network is a computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings. ...

There is no particular piece of software that defines a cluster as a Beowulf. Commonly used parallel processing libraries include MPI (Message Passing Interface) and PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine). Both of these permit the programmer to divide a task among a group of networked computers, and recollect the results of processing. It is a common misconception that any software will run faster on a Beowulf. The software must be re-written to take advantage of the cluster, and specifically have multiple non-dependent parallel computations involved in its execution. The Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a computer communications protocol. ... The Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a software tool for parallel networking of computers. ...

The name comes from the main character in the Old English epic Beowulf. Beowulf is the hero of the Anglo-Saxon poem titled after him (see Beowulf). ...

Original Beowulf HOWTO Definition

The following is the definition of a Beowulf cluster from the original Beowulf HOWTO published under the Linux Documentation Project in 1998. The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is an all-volunteer project that maintains a large collection of Linux (and Linux-related) documentation and publishes the collection online. ...

The Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a software tool for parallel networking of computers. ... The Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a computer communications protocol. ... A NOW or Network of Workstations is a computer network which connects several computer workstations together, and by utilising special software it allows to use the network as a cluster. ... Ù…Ú¯Ù‡ Ø§Ø³ØªØ§Ø¯ Ù†Ú¯ÙØª Ø§ÛŒÙ† Ø³Ø§ÛŒØª Ø¨Ø¯Ø±Ø¯ Ø³Ø±Ú† Ù†Ù…ÛŒ Ø®ÙˆØ±Ù‡ØŸ Ø¨Ø±ÛŒØ¯ Ø³Ø±Ø§Øº ÛŒÙ‡ Ø³Ø§ÛŒØª Ø¯ÛŒÚ¯Ù‡ . Ø.Ù…ØÙ…Ø¯ÛŒ Link titleNFS may mean: National Financial Switch, the interbank network in India National Fire Service, the Second World War fire service in the United Kingdom Need for Speed series, a series of racing computer games produced by Electronic Arts Network File System (Sun), a protocol for accessing and sharing file...

Operating systems

Presently, there are a number of different Linux distributions and one BSD that are designed for building Beowulf clusters. These include: A Linux distribution, often simply distribution or distro, is a member of the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems comprising the Linux kernel, the non-kernel parts of the GNU operating system, and assorted other software. ...

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 utilizing all CPUs and RAM in the cluster. This type of system is scalable to a nearly unlimited number of computers, although this may be limited by the overhead of the network. As an operating system, ClusterKnoppix is a specialized Linux distribution that is a modification of the Knoppix distribution, but which uses the OpenMosix kernel. ... Knoppix, also spelled as KNOPPIX, is a computer operating system which can be used as a live CD. It is a Debian based Linux distribution, developed by Linux consultant Klaus Knopper. ... Rocks Cluster Distribution is a Linux distribution intended for computer clusters. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards and conform with our NPOV policy, this article or section may require cleanup. ... DragonFly BSD is a free, Unix-like operating system which was forked from FreeBSD 4. ... Knoppix, also spelled as KNOPPIX, is a computer operating system which can be used as a live CD. It is a Debian based Linux distribution, developed by Linux consultant Klaus Knopper. ... Transfers in an openMosix cluster. ...

Examples

Download high resolution version (500x667, 249 KB)Picture of a Beowulf Cluster. ... Download high resolution version (500x667, 249 KB)Picture of a Beowulf Cluster. ... The Kentucky Linux Athlon Testbed (or KLAT2) is a 64+2 node Beowulf cluster built by the University of Kentucky in 2000. ... The Stone Soupercomputer was a Beowulf computer cluster built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1997. ...

See also

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... An example of a Computer cluster A computer cluster is a group of tightly coupled computers that work together closely so that in many respects they can be viewed as though they are a single computer. ... Grid computing is a phrase in distributed computing which can have several meanings: A local computer cluster which is like a grid because it is composed of multiple nodes. ...

External links

Categories: Parallel computing | Linux Image File history File links Cray2. ... Parallel computing is the simultaneous execution of the same task (split up and specially adapted) on multiple processors in order to obtain results faster. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Supercomputing. ... Data Parallelism is a form of parallelization of computer code. ... Task Parallelism is a form of parallelization of computer code. ... In parallel computing, speedup refers to how much a parallel algorithm is faster than a corresponding sequential algorithm. ... The speedup of a program using multiple processors in parallel computing is limited by the sequential fraction of the program. ... Flynns taxonomy is a classification of computer architectures, proposed by Michael J. Flynn in 1972. ... SISD is an acronym for Single Instruction stream over a Single Data stream. ... -1... Multiple Instruction Single Data (MISD) is a type of parallel computing architecture where many functional units perform different operations on the same data. ... Multiple Instruction Multiple Data (MIMD) is a type of parallel computing architecture where many functional units perform different operations on different data. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... Gustafsons Law (also known as Gustafson-Barsis law) is a law in computer engineering which states that any sufficiently large problem can be efficiently parallelized. ... The Karp-Flatt Metric is a measure of parallelization of code in parallel processor systems. ... In computing, a process is an instance of a computer program that is being executed. ... For the form of code consisting entirely of subroutine calls, see Threaded code. ... A fiber in computer science is a term for a particularly lightweight thread of execution. ... PRAM stands for Parallel Random Access Machine, which is an abstract machine for designing the algorithms applicable to parallel computers. ... Multiprocessing is traditionally known as the use of multiple concurrent processes in a system as opposed to a single process at any one instant. ... Multithreading computers have hardware support to efficiently execute multiple threads. ... In computing, multitasking is a method by which multiple tasks, also known as processes, share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is... Memory coherence (also cache coherence or cache consistency) is the property of the shared memory systems (multiprocessors and distributed shared memory systems) in which any shared piece of memory (cache line or memory page) gives consistent values with accordance to earlier agreed consistency model despite accesses (maybe parallel) from different... Cache coherence refers to the integrity of data stored in local caches of a shared resource. ... In parallel computing, a barrier is a type of synchronization method. ... In computer science, especially parallel computing, synchronization means the coordination of simultaneous threads or processes to complete a task in order to get correct runtime order and avoid unexpected race conditions. ... Distributed computing is a method of computer processing in which different parts of a program run simultaneously on two or more computers that are communicating with each other over a network. ... Grid computing is a phrase in distributed computing which can have several meanings: A local computer cluster which is like a grid because it is composed of multiple nodes. ... A parallel programming model is a set of software technologies to express parallel algorithms and match applications with the underlying parallel systems. ... In computer science, implicit parallelism is a characteristic of a programming language that allows a compiler to automatically exploit the parallelism inherent to the computations expressed by some of the languages constructs. ... In computer programming, explicit parallelism is the representation of concurrent computations by means of primitives in the form of special-purpose directives or function calls. ... An example of a Computer cluster A computer cluster is a group of tightly coupled computers that work together closely so that in many respects they can be viewed as though they are a single computer. ... Symmetric Multiprocessing, or SMP, is a multiprocessor computer architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory. ... Non-Uniform Memory Access or Non-Uniform Memory Architecture (NUMA) is a computer memory design used in multiprocessors, where the memory access time depends on the memory location relative to a processor. ... Cache only memory architecture (COMA) is a computer memory organization for use in multiprocessors in which the local memories (typically DRAM) at each node are used as cache. ... Asymmetric Multiprocessing or ASMP is a style of multiprocessing supported in DECs VMS V.3 as well as a number of older systems including TOPS-10 and OS-360. ... Simultaneous multithreading, often abbreviated as SMT, is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of the hardware that executes instructions in a computer. ... // Diagram of a typical Shared memory system. ... Distributed memory is a concept used in parallel computing. ... Massive parallelism is a term used in computer architecture and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design. ... Simple superscalar pipeline. ... A vector processor, or array processor, is a CPU design that is able to run mathematical operations on multiple data elements simultaneously. ... A supercomputer is a computer that led the world in terms of processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation, at the time of its introduction. ... It has been suggested that GPGPU be merged into this article or section. ... Distributed Shared Memory (DSM), in computer science, refers to a wide class of software and hardware implementations, in which each node of a cluster has access to a large shared memory in addition to each nodes limited non-shared private memory. ... To quote Matt Dillon (of DragonFly BSD), Checkpointing allows you to freeze a copy of an application so that, in theory, you can restore the program to that running state at a later point in time. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... An application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that a computer system or program library provides to support requests for services to be made of it by a Length. ... POSIX Threads is a POSIX standard for threads. ... OpenMP logo The OpenMP (Open Multi-Processing) is an application programming interface (API) that supports multi-platform shared memory multiprocessing programming in C/C++ and Fortran on many architectures, including Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms. ... The Message Passing Interface (MPI) is a computer communications protocol. ... In the jargon of parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload (or embarrassingly parallel problem) is one for which no particular effort is needed to segment the problem into a very large number of parallel tasks, and there is no essential dependency (or communication) between those parallel tasks. ... A Grand Challenge Problem is a general category of unsolved problems. ... In multiprocessor computer systems, software lockout is the issue of performance degradation due to the idle wait times spent by the CPUs in kernel-level critical sections. ...

Contents

Original Beowulf HOWTO Definition

Operating systems

Examples

Other software solutions

See also

External links