Cluster Computing
From Teknologisk videncenter
See Cluster Computing for a definition Engineering a Beowulf-style Compute Cluster
Contents
What is a Cluster
A cluster is a setup of two or more computers - called nodes - that work together to perform a task.
Types of clusters
Basically there are four type of clusters:
| Storage Clusters | Shared filesystem among nodes |
| High Availability Clusters | Failover, redundancy |
| Load Balancing Clusters | Distribute Load between two or more nodes |
| High Performance Clusters | Parallel computing, more nodes solving the same problem |
Often you would need a combination of these Clusters in a installation.
Storage Clusters
- RedHat CentOS GFS CentOS
- iSCSI´
- FreeNAS
High Availability Clusters
Load Balancing Clusters
Load balancing with Cisco IOS NAT
High Performance Clusters
While there are several systems for cluster computing. OSCAR is very popular.
Grid computing
For example seti@home
Examples of cluster solutions
OSCAR
Diskless nodes
- Pegasus homepage for ideas to implement a diskless Linux cluster.
- Diskless Linux by Charles M. "Chip" Coldwell
- Diskless Linux Cluster how-to by U.S. Army
- Building Diskless Nodes IBM RedBook
Quorum Disc
- Windows see Quorum disc
Concepts and abbreviations
Fencing
When a node fails in a cluster, the node is fenced, which means it will be rejected from shared resources.