https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/building-beowulf-cluster-just-13-steps/

What are Clusters

A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. Clusters are generally connected by a fast Local Area Network.

What is a Beowulf Cluster

Beowulf Clusters are cheap clusters created using off the shelf components. You can create a Beowulf cluster with just a few crap computers and an ethernet segment in your backyard. Although they don’t give you top-notch performance, their performance is many-fold better than a single computer. A variant of Beowulf Clusters allows OS to run on every node and still allow parallel processing. And this is what exactly we’re going to do here.

That's actually super interesting! So you can actually combine multiple low-end computer processing unit to make them act like a high-end computer spec?

why does that sounds so wrong?

Exactly, that's the idea, C8Hypela, but it's strictly about processing speed (so you can't plug two old computers together to play some new game).

The idea in itself is not new. Computers (or more precisely, CPUs) do one thing at a time. With some problems or calculations, things can be sped up considerably by letting multiple CPUs do things in parallel.

Old supercomputers (like CRAYs or Thinking Machines computers) did this to a certain degree. They had so-called vector-processors, which could calculate different parts of a problem at the same time. Typical things done with vector-CPUs were climate modelling or weather forecasts. Or today, probably bitcoin mining. ;)

Beowulf uses the same trick, but uses cheap off-the-shelf hardware. You can connect, say, 50 cheap computers (which should be of the same type) to create one big "virtual" computer with a lot of processing power.


[https://youtu.be/W24ItFdsL7k?t=107 <- That's a Thinking Machines CM-2 ... every one of those flickering red lights is one CPU working]