Beowulf clusters are high-performance computers built from off-the-shelf commodity components. They usually consist of a cluster of PCs running Linux and connected using a Fast Ethernet network, however some clusters use high-end Unix workstations (such as Compaq Alpha or Sun UltraSPARC machines) and/or high-end gigabit networks (such as Myrinet, ServerNet or Giganet).
Beowulfs have become very popular over the past couple of years, due to the rapid improvements in the performance of commodity processors and networking infrastructure, and the development of Linux, a free Unix-like operating system for PCs. For most applications, clusters offer much better price/performance than standard supercomputers such as vector or shared memory machines.
We have been building and experimenting with Beowulf systems for two reasons: to construct cost-effective high-performance computers for use by computational scientists; and to explore some of the many research issues in parallel and cluster computing with Beowulf systems.
The DHPC group has designed and installed two large clusters which are among the most powerful supercomputers in Australia
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