[Beowulf] What can a HS student do with a small Beowulf?

[Lombard, David N]

From: Todd Patton on Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:52 PM
> 
> On the subject of computational clusters, I personally get the picture
> that most of the subscribers on this list, and such users of the
> computational clusters, have more of a background in parallel
> programming with science applications, as opposed to network and
systems
> administration.

More of a background in science with strong computational needs.  That
need to compute more in less time then leads to parallel programming and
then to (today's) clusters.  You'll probably also find that those with
more years in computing also spent time on larger SMP and/or vector
systems.

> Is it the norm for the list that the cluster manager,
> administrator, builder, programmer, and user roles are played by the
> same person(s)?

It depends.  Hey, you just got the Standard HPC Answer (TM).  Anyway, it
depends on the nature of the compute facility and the organization, but
there are clearly a large number of those, mostly by necessity.

> Should a high chool student that really wants to pursue
> a career in computational clusters follow a programming path in
computer
> science or major in engineering or science, - with a minor in computer
> science?

Depends on what you mean by "a career in computational clusters."  Users
and many of the best parallel programmers come from science (not CS) and
engineering.  Precious little formal instruction exists for parallel
programming at all, let alone MPI, OpenMP, et al. so most have learned
parallel programming by necessity.

-- 
David N. Lombard  Sr. Staff Software Engineer
Intel Corporation, SSG, Developer Products Division

My statements represent my opinions, not those of Intel Corporation