[wplug] Beowulf Cluster in SW PA

[Jonathan Billings]

On Jan 3, 2009, at 10:07 PM, terry mcintyre wrote:

> 1) I could not open that .png link.
> 2) The article says nothing about a beowulf cluster

I've been trying to read it from both my home and work systems, no  
luck.  I get a connection timed out -- I suspect it's a firewall issue  
if other people can view it fine.

> 3) the company smells fishy to me. They're bringing out not just one  
> marvelous invention, but three, including a solution to the energy  
> crisis? I'd hold on to my wallet with this one.

"beowulf" clusters are fairly popular these days with research  
groups.  I'm certain there are plenty in the Pittsburgh area.  All it  
takes is 2 or more systems connected to a shared network, and some  
open source libraries.  Heck, you can run it on Amazon EC2.

I'm not sure how it would help with designing the products mentioned  
in the Trib article, though.  Without the "full" article I can only  
speculate.  The focus seems to be on mechanical engineering, designing  
heat pumps and engines.  There are ways to take advantage of a HPC  
cluster to simulate testing various designs.

Judging from the Trib article, it sounds like there's really only one  
real product (the O2 concentrator), with a bunch of "backburner"  
projects to sounds cool to the media and attract grants.


--
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>