Contents

		Contents

		Series Foreword

		xiii

		Foreword

		xv

		Preface

		xix

		1 Introduction

		1

		1.1 A Brief History

		2

		1.2 The Beowulf Book

		4

		2 Overview  of Beowulf Systems

		9

		2.1 What Is a Beowulf?

		9

		2.2 A Taxonomy of Parallel Computing

		12

		2.3 Benefits of Beowulf

		13

		2.4 A Critical Technology Convergence

		14

		2.5 The Beowulf System Node

		16

		2.6 The Beowulf Network

		18

		2.7 Linux

		19

		2.8 Message Passing for Interprocessor Communication

		20

		2.9 Beowulf System Management

		21

		2.10 The Beowulf Challenge

		21

		3 Node Hardware

		25

		3.1 Overview of a Beowulf Node

		26

		3.1.1 Principal Specifications

		28

		3.1.2 Basic Elements

		29

		3.2   Processors

		32

		3.2.1 Intel PentiumII

		33

		3.2.2 DEC Alpha

		34

		3.2.3 AMD K6

		34

		3.2.4 Future Processors

		34