CLUSTER COMPUTING
TECHNOLOGY
BY : MAHESH BHOOP
NIKHIL JAMDADE
WHAT IS COMPUTING ?
1) Computing is usually defined as the activity of
using and improving computer hardware and software.
2) A computer is a machine that manipulates data
according to a set of instructions called a computer
program.
3) A computer is a programmable machine that receives
input, stores and automatically manipulates data, and
provides output in a useful format.
WHAT IS A PC CLUSTER ?
Clustering is the use of multiple computers,
storage devices, and redundant interconnection, to
form what appears to users as a single highly
available system.
Computer cluster technology puts clusters of
system together to provide better system reliability
and performance.
DIAGRAM :
Cluster Architecture :
NEED OF CLUSTER COMPUTING ?
Here are some signs you want to start clustering more:
Your company has expanded.
Your company has to use higher functioning programs.
Your departments have grown or moved to other offices.
Your tasks are becoming harder to complete with
singular computers.
Features :
Collaboration
Scientists can collaborate in real-time across dispersed locations-
Bridging isolated islands of scientific research and discovery- when
HPC clusters are based on open source and building block technology.
Scalability
HPC clusters can grow in overall capacity because processors and nodes
can be added as demand increases.
Availability
Because single points of failure can be eliminated, if any one system
component goes Down, the system as a whole or the solution (multiple
systems) stay highly available.
Ease of technology refresh
Processors, memory, disk or operating system (OS) technology can be
Easily updated, And new processors and nodes can be added or
upgraded as needed.
Affordable service and support
Compared to proprietary systems, the total cost of ownership can
be much lower. This includes service, support and training
DIFFERENT KINDS OF PC CLUSTER ?
High Performance Computing Cluster
Load Balancing
High Availability
High Performance Computing Cluster
(Beowulf)
Start from 1994
Donald Becker of NASA assemble the world’s first
cluster with 16 sets of DX4 PCs and 10 Mb/s
Ethernet
Also called Beowulf cluster
Built from commodity off-the-shelf hardware
Applications like data mining, simulations, parallel
processing, weather modelling, computer graphical
rendering, etc.
Load Balancing Cluster
PC cluster deliver load balancing performance
Commonly used with busy ftp and web
servers with large client base
Large number of nodes to share load
High Availability Cluster
Avoid downtime of services
Avoid single point of failure
Always with redundancy
Almost all load balancing cluster are with HA
capability
Two Significant Aspects of HPC
Given a fixed complexity of an algorithm,
the time consumption T will be decreased
by a factor of 1/N as N increases, where N
is the number of distributed computing
workers in the cluster.
Increasing the number of distributed
computing workers in the cluster will enable
the cluster to handle jobs with higher
complexity while maintain almost the same
time consumption.
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Where to Find Cluster Computing
• The need for cluster computing becomes highly important
in companies or organizations which need to have
information be more public, though only available to
trained workers
Large international corporations
Government agencies
Companies with numerous employees
Data management organizations
Hospitals and medical centers
A Successful Case Study:
“Compute Cluster Server 2003 has been a fantastic solution for us. It’s
affordable, easy to deploy and manage, and...it doesn’t require any of our
researchers to rewrite code.”
Yonael Teklu, IT Support Manager, Advanced Research Institute, Virginia Tech
Needed significant
Upgraded existing
Faster research time
computing resources server computers to and results
for data and statistical 64-bit version of
analysis Microsoft® Windows
Simple deployment
Server® 2003 and management
Required an
economical high-
Purchased new
Ease of use
performance server computers to
Improved security
computing solution create a 16-node authentication
cluster using Capacity for future
Reluctant to engage in Microsoft Windows®
complex system expansion
Compute Cluster
management Server 2003
Expectation of
Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster
Reduce more computational cost
Security
◦ Integration with Active Directory enables role-based security for
administration and users.
Reliability
Scalability
◦ “Additional compute nodes can be added to the compute cluster
by simply plugging in the nodes and connecting them.”
Easy deployment and administration
◦ Microsoft Management Console provides a familiar administrative
and scheduling interface
User friendly
◦ MATLAB® Applications
◦ C++ Applications, Microsoft ® Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server
2005
India in cluster computing
PARAM 10000 - National Param
Supercomputing Facility (NPSF) at Pune and
the 1 TF (TeraFlop) PARAM Padma at the C-
DAC's Terascale Supercomputing Facility
(CTSF) at Bangalore
PARAM with Rmax (Sustained Performance) of
37.80 TFs and Rpeak (Peak Performance) of
54.01 TFs, has been ranked at One Hundred
Nine (109th) in TOP500 Systems enlisted.
The Future is Brighter Than Ever
Computer clusters will:
Make running a business more efficient
Save computer costs
Help to reach out to other workers in
other parts of the world
Encourage creativity among workers who
can file share
Example : Projects @ CBIL
CBIL is a participant of caBIGTM – cancer
Biomedical Informatics Grid sponsored by
the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Goal of caBIGTM : demonstrate how shared
informatics platform can allow a
comprehensive, federal grid of information
to be made available to the cancer research
community.
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Conclusions by cBIL
Cluster computing solution will significantly
help CBIL to reduce computational cost.
Cancer research community will get benefits
from computational efficiency using cluster
computing.
Microsoft Windows Compute Cluster Server
2003 brings high-performance computing
(HPC) to industry standard, low cost servers,
which meets CBIL’s needs perfectly.
Benefits of Computer Clusters
Benefits of Computer Clusters
Reduced Cost
Processing Power
Improved Network Technology
Availability
Conclusion :
1) Increase throughput for massive data processing
2) Inexpensive - uses commodity computers with lots of disks and
disk space
3) New trends in hardware and software technologies are likely to
make clusters more promising.
