“High-performance computing (HPC) using clusters has come a
long, long way from its early days. Back then, a cluster was a
network of disparate workstations, which often sat on people’s
desks, harnessed together into a Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)
computation. Back then, nascent Beowulf clusters consisted of cheap
tower PCs literally stacked up on shelves.“Early on, cluster computing was only being done by a tiny
handful of people–usually by computer scientists who were working
on building the future or by people who were doing real science
(with computers) who needed the future a bit before the future was
ready for them…”