[Beowulf] why we need cheap, open learning clusters

[Geoffrey Jacobs]

On 05/12/2013 01:12 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:
> Well.. On the Beowulf list the (super) goes without saying.. Is there any
> other kind worth considering?<grin>
> 
> (is a cluster of Arduinos a Beowulf? It's commodity hardware running open
> source software using commodity non-proprietary interconnects. I think so..
> 
> But I don't think it's HPC... So it would be a "personal cluster computer"
> or a "personal Beowulf" but probably not a "personal supercomputer")

What do you call it when you must use multiple microcontrollers to
achieve AD or DA conversion performance (in terms of sampling rate or
number of channels) not possible with a single controller? Put another
way, can a SCADA network be a Beowulf? One particular example that comes
to mind is the EPICS system at CERN.