[Beowulf] Confused over the term cluster

[Kalpana Kanthasamy]

Thanks guys, that was really helpful.

On 3/28/08, amjad ali <amjad11 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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>
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