Slashdot Mirror
A New Approach To Linux Clusters
rkischuk writes: "InformationWeek has an article about a group of ex-Cray engineers working on a new architecture for clustering Linux systems. 'It's not easy trying to build scalable systems from commodity hardware designed for assembling desktop computers and small servers.' Per the article, 'As the number of CPUs in a Beowulf-style cluster-a group of PCs linked via Ethernet-increases and memory is distributed instead of shared, the efficiency of each processor drops as more are added,' but 'Unlimited's solution involves tailoring Linux running on each node in a cluster, rather than treating all the nodes as peers.'" Looks like Cray engineers think about clustering even when they're not at Cray.
Cray's engineers seem always willing to consider every possibility, whether it be clusters, p2p, parallel, etc.. showing us that they're considering things well outside of what they're currently offering is also showing us why they're still in the game and even ahead in serious computing power after so many years.. IBM, Sun, etc.. have had their rise and falls, but Cray is always mentioned with reverance...
Somehow I can't see 1024 chickens all agreeing to go in the same direction at the same time.