| Abstract: | The availability of high‐speed networks and increasingly powerful commodity microprocessors is making the usage of clusters, or networks, of computers an appealing vehicle for cost effective parallel computing. Clusters, built using Commodity‐Off‐The‐Shelf (COTS) hardware components as well as free, or commonly used, software, are playing a major role in redefining the concept of supercomputing. In this paper we discuss the reasons why COTS‐based clusters are becoming popular environments for running supercomputing applications. We describe the current enabling technologies and present four state‐of‐the‐art cluster‐based projects. Finally, we summarise our findings and draw a number of conclusions relating to the usefulness and likely future of cluster computing. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
