philosipical question

[Greg Lindahl]

> When does a Beowulf class cluster stop being a Beowulf class cluster?

That depends on what you think a Beowulf is, of course. If you look through
the archive of this list, you'll see a lot of views.

> If I build a cluster using commodity hw but use a high performance
> network, like myrinet or SCI, is it still a Beowulf?

What makes you think high performance networks aren't commodity hardware?

SCI is a standard, and there are multiple vendors who make components.

Myrinet is also an ANSI standard, but only one vendor builds it.

Neither is "mass market". But to some people, they are commodity. To others,
they aren't what Beowulf are about. So you see odd things, sometimes, of
people buying gigabit ethernet because it's "commodity", while having bought
Myrinet would have given them more bang for their buck.

By the way, I believe Don Becker considers his Myrinet-using clusters
Beowulfs, but you'll have to ask him.

-- g