US boffin builds 32-way Raspberry Pi cluster Boise University PhD candidate Joshua Kiepert has built a 32-way Beowulf cluster from Raspberry Pis. Kiepert says his research focuses on “developing a novel data sharing system for wireless sensor networks to facilitate in-network collaborative processing of sensor data.” To study that field Kipert figured he would need a …
That was the only thing I was thinking, why not build an ok pc and put 32 linux vms on it same concept still pretty cheap if you only went with like 128MB per vm you still only need 4GB of Ram sure disk i/o would be an issue but as he said its not fast on the pi cluster either. Neat idea and all but i guess the cost conciousness in me says use a spare pc with ESXi or KVM and do the same thing without spending anything most likely.
Although it's not super-clear from the article, it's specifically the low-level IO that he was trying to talk to with the cluster, which of course you would have to specifically emulate with the hypervisor (as the point of the hypervisor is to present an agnostic interface).
Of course the other reason to do it (just as valid in my opinion) is "because".
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One can only hope that this new generation of ultra-low-cost computers will keep resulting in the design and construction of more and more massively-parallel (MP) computers.
Why? Because what is and has been missing from the MP scene in order to realize the full potential of MP computers is the SOFTWARE to fully make use of the hardware. As the cost of the hardware approaches zero--relatively speaking--we self-important computer engineers are going to have to stop kidding ourselves that we are doing something REALLY IMPORTANT by designing and building the MP machinery; we've got to finally 'fess up to the fact that all along, that's been the easy part. Now we've got do the really HARD work: design the assemblers, compilers, and high-level languages to make it all really, REALLY WORK.
And one more nice feature of low, low cost MP computers: don't bet against a ten- or twelve-year old boy OR girl--or a group of them--doing the seminal work on the MP critical software (their advantage over us? They, unlike us, don't know that it can't be done).
Regards...
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