[ Thanks to Dan Orzech
for this link. ]
“Beowulf may be in its infancy, but it is a baby that’s getting
a lot of attention. Even companies like Compaq Computer Corp.,
which has its own high-end clustering systems — thanks to its
acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp. — aggressively markets
Beowulf. While Compaq will gladly sell a customer TruCluster for
Tru64 UNIX, Beowulf systems, particularly those based around the
floating point-friendly Alpha chip, have been good business for
Compaq. Some customers are using “literally thousands of Compaq
Alpha servers with Beowulf,” says Glenn Johnson, Director of
Compaq’s Linux Program Office.”
“Compaq’s participation in the Beowulf market is as easy to
understand as the appeal of the clusters to its customers. “Any
industry that has a computational problem that can be parallelized
is looking at Beowulf because you can assemble a hell of a lot of
gigaflops for not a lot of money,” says Johnson.”
“…some vendors are now seeing corporate customers who are
taking a serious look at Beowulf for their “heavy hardware” needs.
“We are seeing a big shift—it’s the product lifecycle,” says
Brad Rutledge, public relations director for Linux NetworX. “We
think Linux as well as clustering is going from the techie to the
early-adopter stage,” attracting companies that can afford to take
technology bets in exchange for the price advantages and power of
Beowulf systems.”