Figure 1An Example Cluster Configuration
Cluster Computing
What is a cluster computing?
A cluster is a computer system that consists of a collection of interconnected stand-alone computers cooperatively working together to create an illusion and provide power of an omnipresent and/or a super computer service. It is a combined power of enabling software and hardware methods through which commercial off[CRW1] the shelf components (e.g. bunch of your regular PCs or high-end servers, network cards, switches, applications, middleware) can be put together as one single giant computing resource. The cluster computing technique has tremendously gained popularity. It provides a cost effective and obsolescence-resilient solution. In fact, a cluster computer almost kills all traditional supercomputer business Figure 1 shows an example cluster configuration (architecture). Figure 2 show a picture of the actual system.
Figure 1an example cluster configuration
Figure 2 MCR Linux Cluster, Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
Picture is excerpted from
There are three basic components in building a clustered system:
- Computers, sometimes lots of computers
- Networks; switch, hub, network interface card (NIC)
- Software, operating system, middleware, applications, tools
Cluster benefits
Clusters are justified by several benefits:
Scalability: Clusters can scale up from few to thousandsof nodes while remaining competitive on price and performance.
Availability: Clusters have multiple interconnected physical nodes and resources, they can ensure better operational continuity and recovery.
Redundancy: Multiple physical cluster nodes provide the capability to avoid critical outages. Traditionally, because cluster nodes are based on commodity hardware, the replacement cost for an outage component is typically less than repairing a similar component on a supercomputer or multi-processor (SMP) computer system.
Example Applications:
DreamWorks had one animation sequence that took 24-hours to be rendered on a 32-bit system. However, with a up-coming new Itanium-based 64-bit servers, it took 20 minutes on the same frame rendering….Think about the rendering times: you have 30 frames a second, one and a half hour of animation and 17 Terabytes of data (2000 CDs). Think about trying to render those images into final production. That involves a lot of computing power. DreamWorks used Linux based cluster to create their production.
Did you know that?
- In the TOP500 the world most powerful supercomputer systems, 149 are clusters, 23 are labeled as self-made (excepted from June 2003
- Your phone calls are switched or processed by a cluster system
- Google search engine consists of more than 10,000 node clusters
- E-commerce (online shopping) sites have used a cluster technology in their order/inventory processing.
A High Availability and Performance Computing research at eXtreme Computing Research Group, CEnIT, Louisiana Tech University.[CRW2]
High Availability (HA) Computing has long been played a critical role in industry mission critical applications (e.g. Telephone Switching, e-commerce, search engine etc). On the other hand, High Performance Computing (HPC) has equally been a significant enabler for R&D community for their scientific discoveries (e.g. genomic research, weather forecasting/modeling etc). With combination of HA and HPC, together will clearly lead to even more benefits to both industry, academic and research entities. Our main research is to find a cost-effective solution in High Availability (HA) and Performance computing and to bring HPC to mission industry application. Our current findings include novel techniques in a cluster design, analysis and cluster infrastructure software tools. We have created the first HA-Beowulf cluster. We also have collaborated our HAP computing research with National and industry Laboratories (e.g. Oak Ridge National Lab (DOE), EricssonTelecomm open software Lab, Lucent Technologies, Systran Corp). Please contact Dr. Box Leangsuksun, for more info.[CRW3]
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[CRW2]Your logo would like nice here and give you future product recognition.
Brian, could you add both XCR and IMMO logos in the final poster.
[CRW3]The diagrams and pictures are good. I think for the incoming freshman this will be good. A few more would not hurt.