soup4you2 writes “A cluster is used to make a collection of 2 or more computers run as a single super computer. Clusters can be used to increase reliability and/or increase performance and resources available. A Beowulf cluster is a group of usually identical PC computers that are networked together into a TCP/IP LAN, and have libraries and programs installed which allow processing to be shared among them.”
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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…if I set up a beowulf cluster of Sinclair ZX81s, could I play nethack?
Seriously, I’d love to see more applications take advantage of clustered/parallel computing. It would make clusters a lot more viable for the average home user or SME.
Imagine, for home users, being able to compress with Divx;-) on a cluster, or for businesses to be able to pull complicated reports from their database in short amounts of time.
Hell, what sort of SETI units do you reckon these beasts could process? 😉