Building Your First Cluster

Douglas Eadline writes “Getting started with what appears to be a very powerful, very complex idea (in computing, at least) is often a daunting proposition, and cluster computing is no exception. There is so much to learn! So many things can go wrong! It might require new, specialized, expensive hardware and software! But wait! In this column Robert Brown reviews the simplest of designs for a cluster you may already have — two or more (linux/unix) workstations on a completely generic local area network. This sort of “cluster” is easy to build and actually free in many environments (or rather, for the economically picky, is available at zero marginal cost, significantly improving the productivity of your existing resources).”