Questions about clustering

[WarpSpeed]

In order to utilize clustering, do I need anything special besides the appropriate OS and two or more networked computers? Specifically, I have a copy of Win2K Advanced Server, and I would like to know if I can use my home LAN as a cluster for activities such as video encoding. Do you know where I can find more information on this subject? Thanks.

 

[Abzstrak]

how do U plan to use it for video encoding? Are you looking for something that shares cpu power among the systems like load balancing? or are you looking for something that utilitizes the cpus from all the systems clustered as one big fast system?

 

[Santa]

Abzstrak is on the money in terms of asking what you "define" as "clustering". This term is not used the same everywhere.

Microsoft Clustering is used for High avalibility and thats it. You can't make Video encoding any quicker with it.

If you want some sort of Distributed load balancing clustering you may be limited by what that software can do if you are on a Windows platform.

Unix does have a clustering method capable of uniting the sum of the power of the individual machines to do one task similar to Distributed computing idea.

Some Windows applications do have distributed computing built in such as Bryce's latest 3D Modler but it requires a client installed on the individual machines to await jobs from the central server.

Read up on Microsoft's site on clustering and you will get a better idea of what that is and whether High availbility is what you are shooting for or not. From what it sounds like in your post it isn't.

 

[WarpSpeed]

Abzstrak,
I was thinking more in terms of the second example; a system that might use multiple computers in the way that one computer can use two or more processors. I'm not at all sure exactly how clustering works, and that's why I'm asking.

 

[WarpSpeed]

Santa,
Thanks for the response. I'll check the Microsoft site.

 

[neuralfx]

If you want more information on clustering, look into a project called Beowulf, beowulf.org. This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but it will give you an idea of what clustering is all about .. hope this helps ..
-neural

 

[Armitage]

Well, unless you plan to write the code yourself, your search should probably start on the application software end. ie., find a software package for video encoding that supports clustering (or maybe called distributed processing) and see what the network & OS requirements are.

If you feel up to writing the code yourself, have a look at PVM or MPI to handle the data passing. Both have windows version.

And finally, you might just need a tool to kick off remote jobs, and gather the results. In that case have a look at the Maui scheduler or PBS (Portable Bartch Scheduler). I don't know if they do windows though.

 

[Nothinman]

The only way to make a program utilize a cluster is if it's written for it, or you have a NUMA box. I guarantee you'll have a hard time getting Windows on a NUMA box even if you could afford it =)