Using several small computers to provide the computing power of one large computer. A Beowulf cluster uses several off-the-shelf PCs connected via Ethernet to solve problems that would normally be handled by a supercomputer. Designed for high speed rather than redundancy, the first Beowulf system was developed by a contractor to NASA in the mid-1990s.
Unix Based
Unix variants such as Linux and FreeBSD are typically used as the operating system in a Beowulf cluster, and parallel operation is provided by available software in the Unix community that manages message passing and memory. Access to a particular PC in a cluster is provided by Telnetting to the machine over the network, as most of the PCs in the cluster do not have display adapters.
In order to run effectively in a Beowulf cluster, applications must be able to split the data into parallel chunks that can be acted upon simultaneously. See Telnet, NOW project and Millennium project.
Unix Based
Unix variants such as Linux and FreeBSD are typically used as the operating system in a Beowulf cluster, and parallel operation is provided by available software in the Unix community that manages message passing and memory. Access to a particular PC in a cluster is provided by Telnetting to the machine over the network, as most of the PCs in the cluster do not have display adapters.
In order to run effectively in a Beowulf cluster, applications must be able to split the data into parallel chunks that can be acted upon simultaneously. See Telnet, NOW project and Millennium project.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2008 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
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