Establishing Linux Clusters for High-performance Computing (HPC) at NPS

Modeling and simulation (M&S) needs high-performance computing resources, but conventional supercomputers are both expensive and not necessarily well suited to M&S tasks. Discrete Event Simulation (DES) often involves repeated, independent runs of the same models with different input parameters. A system which is able to run many replications quickly is more useful than one in which a single monolithic application runs quickly. A loosely coupled parallel system is indicated. Inexpensive commodity hardware, high speed local area networking, and open source software have created the potential to create just such loosely coupled parallel systems. These systems are constructed from Linux-based computers and are called Beowulf clusters. This thesis presents an analysis of clusters in high-performance computing and establishes a testbed implementation at the MOVES Institute. It describes the steps necessary to create a cluster, factors to consider in selecting hardware and software, and describes the process of creating applications that can run on the cluster. Monitoring the running cluster and system administration are also addressed.