High Performance Computing Collaboratory
About Cluster Computing
A Beowulf-class cluster computer , commonly referred to as a Beowulf cluster, is actually a number of "regular," i.e. consumer-based, computer systems (called nodes), linked together in a network running software that allows the computers' resources to be combined. Beowulf cluster computers were first introduced in 1994 as a result of the Beowulf Project at CESDIS. Thanks to the hard work of many people at various universities and organizations, several resources are available for the creation of a Beowulf cluster. In addition, many skilled programmers have been able to develop practical applications for Beowulf clusters. The name given to our cluster, Valhalla, comes from Norse mythology. Valhalla is the great hall of Odin, wherein he feasts with his chosen heroes, all those who have fallen bravely in battle, for all who die a peaceful death are excluded. We chose this name because our cluster began as a collection of "retired" computers.. They represented those who served the University well and were chosen to become part of the beginnings of a supercomputer (the great hall of Computers).
Today, Expedition consists of 64 dual processor Dell 1750 servers (2 Xeon 3.06GHz CPU's plus 2GB RAM each), 35GB Scratch disk space per Node, 100Mb/s Ethernet interconnect, 70GB shared NFS for home directories and 1.8TB shared NFS for scratch disk. Valhalla consists of 32 dual processor Dell 1650 and 2450 servers (2 Xeon 1GHz CPU's plus 1GB RAM each) 18GB Scratch disk space per node, 100Mb/s Ethernet interconnect and 60GB shared NFS for home directories.
Users familiar with programming for shared memory computers will be able to start programming quickly with the Linda programming environment available on Valhalla. Others who are more familiar with message passing may prefer using the PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) programming environment or the MPICH programming environment, an implementation of the MPI (Message Passing Interface) standard.
Please feel free to comment, ask questions, or contribute by sending e-mail to crone@umsl.edu.