3.7 CLUSTER COMPUTING
A computer cluster is a collection of two or more computers used to execute a given problem or section. Typically, in a computing cluster, the interconnection network tying the computers together is a local area network (LAN). Figure 3.4 shows an architecture of a cluster computer system [30]. The computers in the cluster communicate among themselves and among the shared memory. Therefore, the processors in a cluster communicate mainly using packets over the LAN. The LAN is usually implemented using a high-speed server computer capable of supporting high-rate traffic between the processors. The shared memory must be able to communicate with many processors at the same time. Depending on the size of the shared memory, it could be implemented using RAID. The client machine distributes the tasks among the processors of the cluster and gathers the finished results.
Figure 3.4 Architecture of a cluster computer system.
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