I posted this on glocktalk, but haven't had any respones yet, so...

I'm just reading up on this field, but I have a question. Can I build a Beowulf cluster with processors of different speeds?

For instance, could I build a Beowulf cluster with a master node running 2.4 Ghz Pentium IV, and other nodes running 800 Mhz Pentium III's, Celerons, Pentium II's, etc.?

If I understand this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing I believe I can. From what I gather Beowulf is not SMP, but rather ASMP, which implies I can cluster CPU's of different speeds together.

any advice or useful links are appreciated as well as an answer to my initial question.

thanks!

Quoted: I posted this on glocktalk, but haven't had any respones yet, so... I'm just reading up on this field, but I have a question. Can I build a Beowulf cluster with processors of different speeds? For instance, could I build a Beowulf cluster with a master node running 2.4 Ghz Pentium IV, and other nodes running 800 Mhz Pentium III's, Celerons, Pentium II's, etc.? If I understand this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing I believe I can. From what I gather Beowulf is not SMP, but rather ASMP, which implies I can cluster CPU's of different speeds together. any advice or useful links are appreciated as well as an answer to my initial question. thanks!

You could, but please understand there is nothing magical about clustering. It can remove you from certain aspects of managing your workload, but it doesn't give you some free performance spiff.

Quoted: Quoted: I posted this on glocktalk, but haven't had any respones yet, so... I'm just reading up on this field, but I have a question. Can I build a Beowulf cluster with processors of different speeds? For instance, could I build a Beowulf cluster with a master node running 2.4 Ghz Pentium IV, and other nodes running 800 Mhz Pentium III's, Celerons, Pentium II's, etc.? If I understand this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing I believe I can. From what I gather Beowulf is not SMP, but rather ASMP, which implies I can cluster CPU's of different speeds together. any advice or useful links are appreciated as well as an answer to my initial question. thanks! You could, but please understand there is nothing magical about clustering. It can remove you from certain aspects of managing your workload, but it doesn't give you some free performance spiff.

that's cool - not looking for a miracle, just trying to get a proposal together for a school project that would be interesting.

You may be more interested in grid computing or distributed computing as opposed to clustering. Check it out.