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What is the difference between a Cluster and MPP supercomputer architecture?
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So there is no real distinction anymore between personal computers and super computers: a supercomputer is just a cluster with a large number of ordinary processors. So the super prefix comes from the days when high performance computing was only done on very special machines called supercomputers.
A computer cluster may range from a simple two-node system connecting two personal computers to a supercomputer with a cluster architecture. Computer clusters are often used for cost-effective high performance computing (HPC) and high availability (HA) by businesses of all sizes.
Cluster Computing Architecture : It is a group of workstations or computers working together as a single, integrated computing resource connected via high speed interconnects. A node – Either a single or a multiprocessor network having memory, input and output functions and an operating system.
Abstract The supercomputers are known to operate at their highest operational rate and are faster than other computers at the same time. There have been many approaches to build a supercomputer such as grid and distributed computing, but the most efficient and economical way is by using cluster computing.
In a cluster, each machine is largely independent of the others in terms of memory, disk, etc. They are interconnected using some variation on normal networking. The cluster exists mostly in the mind of the programmer and how s/he chooses to distribute the work.
In a Massively Parallel Processor, there really is only one machine with thousands of CPUs tightly interconnected. MPPs have exotic memory architectures to allow extremely high speed exchange of intermediate results with neighboring processors.
The major variants are SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) and MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data). In a SIMD system, every processor is executing the same instruction at the same time, only on different bits of memory. Essentially, there is only one Program Counter. In a MIMD machine, each CPU has it's own PC.
MPPs can be a bitch to program and are of use only on algorithms that are embarrassingly parallel (that's actually what they call it). However, if you have such a problem, then an MPP can be shockingly fast. They are also incredibly expensive.
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