[Beowulf] A fairly simple question

[C. Ahmet MERCAN]

hi;

Simple solution is single pc with virtual PCs. it works properly as 
multi node cluster for educational purpose. if you prefer hardware 
solution you may start two pcs. In fact you dont need more than one pc 
for learning parallel programming. and  different hardware for each node 
works as well as same hardware. for the head node Choosing most 
powerfull machine that you have,  is good decision. because you may set 
it as both file/account server and compute node.

regards...

Cem Ahmet MERCAN


V B Hunt wrote:
> I am a total newbie when it comes to clusters and HPC.  At the same 
> time, I am very interested in the concept and am planning on building my 
> own Beowulf.  The purpose of my Beowulf will be to learn parallel 
> programming, learn more about problems that HPC solves well, and because 
> I want to ;-)  My question is what is the minimum number of nodes to 
> effectively learn programming techniques for clusters?  Just by thinking 
> about it, I would guess that two slave nodes and a head node would be 
> the minimum; however, I have absolutely no practical experience with 
> it.  What are the differences, if any, in programming for a 2-node 
> cluster vs. a 3-node cluster vs. a 4-node cluster vs. a 16-node cluster 
> vs. 1024-node cluster?  This is assuming the hardware of each node is 
> identical to every other node, except for the head node.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Brice Hunt
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