How Many Boxes In A Decent Beowulf Cluster?

Rick the Red asks: "I'd like to build a mini-supercomputer for our High School (and perhaps another for the Junior High). Given that cost is an issue, but given that effective, hands-on demonstration of the principles of parallel processing and clustered computing is the primary goal, how many nodes would it take to make a reasonable demonstration Beowulf cluster? Two? Eight? Sixteen? Has anyone else here done this, and if so are there resources (lesson plans would be nice) on the net for teachers? Also, has anyone networked a room full of computers such that one minute they're individual PCs available for the usual classroom stuff and the next minute they're a Beowulf cluster? If so, how did you do it? And for the final, far out question: Has anyone ever used VMware to create a Beowulf simulator, clustering virtual PCs running on one physical box?"

Comments

It can be done

[ClubPetey]

I'm still on the quest for the perfect MP3 player. One of my attempts was a "cheap" computer running win98 (connected to the TV) with a special shell. While I canned the idea, I discovered in the process that you can build computers VERY cheaply just out of "normal" parts.

Here's what my system consisted of:
$72 Motherboard (Intel D810EMO SB 128 Sound, AGP)
$42 CPU (Celeron 500)
$18 RAM (64MB SDRAM DIMM)
$100 HDD (IBM 40GB)
$34 FlexATX Case
$9 CD-ROM (12x Generic)
$275 Total for system

Ok, the HDD is excessive for you, and this system doesn't have a monitor, but as you can see you can build a computer VERY CHEAPLY through normal mail order.

As for how many, I'm not sure of your budget, but the IDEAL way to demonstrate this would be one for each student, that way you could have a particually complex task run by all student individually, and then again as a cluster. If you are not set on Beowulf specifically, I have some software I wrote for win98 than does clustering (in the distributed.net sense). It was made as a demo for one of my previous jobs, but you're welcome to use it for educational purposes. One nice thing, the source code shows that cluster coding is not that much more complicated.


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He had come like a thief in the night,