Linux Desktop Clustering - Pick Your Pricerange

crashlight writes: "A Linux cluster on the desktop--Rocket Calc just announced their 8-processor "personal" cluster in a mid-tower-sized box. Starting at $4500, you get 8 Celeron 800MHz processors, each with 256MB RAM and a 100Mbps ethernet connection. The box also has an integrated 100Mbps switch. Plus it's sexy." Perhaps less sexy, but for a lot less money, you can also run a cluster of Linux (virtual) machines on your desktop on middle-of-the-road hardware. See this followup on Grant Gross's recent piece on Virtual Machines over at Newsforge.

Comments

only 100mbps?

[Restil]

The primary disadvantage of clustering is the network bottleneck. You lose out because even 100mbps is only a small fraction of what the pci bus of even low end pentium systems are able to handle. At LEAST go with gigabit ethernet so you can push over 100 megs per second between processors. This will greatly increase the usefulness of an integrated cluster by decreasing the one primary disadvantage.

Also a bit pricey, but there would be some cost advantage in reduced footprint for some environments.

-Restil

Re:Virtual macines???

[PD]

I just thought of something else. I have never used a Beowulf cluster, so maybe I'm completely wrong, but virtual machines could make a Beowulf more easily upgradeable. The idea is that you'd make a cluster with a whole bunch of virtual machines, say 1024. The cluster is fixed at that size for all the software that runs. But in reality, you've got 32 processors actually running. When you upgrade the cluster to 64, you don't need to reconfigure any of the software that runs on the cluster, because they all assume that you've got 1024 processors. But, you get a performance increase because there's now more physical processors. As I said before, I don't know much about clusters. I imagine that somebody who really does know will quickly either confirm what I said or reduce my idea to a pile of stinking rubble.