[Beowulf] Confused over the term cluster

[amjad ali]

More general term one could use is the "processing element".
For example if a cluster consists of
2 nodes with each having 1 single core CPU,
2 nodes with each having 1 dual core CPU,
2 nodes with each having 1 quad core CPU,
2 nodes with each having 2 dual core CPUs, and
2 nodes with each having 2 quad core CPUs.

Then we could better say that there are 38 "pocessing elements" in this
10-nodes cluster.
Note that there are 10 motherboards in this cluster.


On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 8:32 AM, Mark Hahn <hahn at mcmaster.ca> wrote:

> > I would call a cluster with 32 nodes and 8 cores in each node a 32 node,
> 256
> > CPU cluster.
>
> yes, definitely.  node implies a boundary of memory addressing: after all,
> it's a cluster because we need to use distributed-memory programming
> techniques like MPI to harness it.  often nodes that have more cores
> are called "fat nodes".
>
> >> I am kinda confused with term cluster and now am sure if this where I
> can
> >> post my question. What exactly can be defined as a cluster ?, We have a
> 32
> >> node cluster in our lab. and the number 32 here is referred to 32
> separate
> >> machines ( each with its own processor ). What about the new machines
> >> like,
> >> dual core processors or the quad core processors, are those considered
> >> clusters also. For example, should we refer to a quad core processor as
> a
> >> cluster of 4 processors. Hope someone out there could explain. Thanks
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