[Beowulf] clustering using xen virtualized machines

[Chris Dagdigian]

One of the virtualization trends I do see in HPC/clustering is in the 
area of packaging up entire scientific applications into their own 
custom VMs which contain all the necessary libraries, software 
dependencies etc.

There is a performance hit now and implementation is clunky but I can 
see cases where "each app sits in its own VM" and the VMs get launched 
across a cluster would helpful.

This sort of work is trending upwards with Amazon AWS and other 
infrastructure providers - it can be easier to blast your workflow out 
into 'the cloud' if it's all wrapped up in a self contained and super 
portable VM.

Given how many different versions of R and other core tools like Perl 
etc. that I need to support on heterogenous scientific clusters this 
could be a good trend, heh.

Just my $.02

-Chris