| To the outside world, a "supercomputer" appears to be a single system. In fact, it's a cluster of computers that share a local area network and have the ability to work together on a single problem as a team. Many businesses used to consider supercomputing beyond the reach of their budgets, but new Linux applications have made high-performance clusters more affordable than ever. These days, the promise of low-cost supercomputing is one of the main reasons many businesses choose Linux over other operating systems.
Since a wide variety of options exist in each area of clustering software, the author discusses the pros and cons of the major free software projects and chooses those that are most likely to be helpful to new cluster administrators and programmers. A few of the projects introduced in the book include:
- MPI, the most popular programming library for clusters. This book offers simple but realistic introductory examples along with some pointers for advanced use.
- OSCAR and Rocks, two comprehensive installation and administrative systems
- openMosix (a convenient tool for distributing jobs), Linux kernel extensions that migrate processes transparently for load balancing
- PVFS, one of the parallel filesystems that make clustering I/O easier
- C3, a set of commands for administering multiple systems
Ganglia, OpenPBS, and cloning tools (Kickstart, SIS and G4U) are also covered. | |
