You can achieve supercomputer performance from off-the-shelf PCs by running a Linux clustering system called Beowulf. New developments add the ability to run Beowulf clusters on 64-bit AMD Opteron processors, dramatically improving the performance of clustered computers.

Beowulf provides one way to group a set of computers to work on a single task. One PC acts as the master of the cluster, controlling the other computers. The other computers each act as stripped-down computation devices, performing operations in parallel. Each computer in the cluster gets one small piece of an overall task. All the computers in the cluster communicate over a high-speed internal network.

The power of Beowulf clustering lies in the usage of off-the-shelf hardware, dramatically reducing the cost for creating what can be supercomputer performance, at least for tasks that work well with clusters. Beowulf clusters work best for computational tasks that can be divided into relatively independent pieces. For example, a lot of weather prediction and graphics ray-tracing for movie special effects fit well into Beowulf-style clusters. One of the neat things about the clusters is that the software can work on older PCs, turning boxes relegated to boat anchors and door stops into computation engines.

Beowulf, though, isn't just one software package. There are several packages you can install to make up parts of a Beowulf cluster such as Parallel Virtual...

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