Thanks to you guys I have decided to go with dual cpu servers. Now I am considering using beowulf to cluster the servers. I want to use the cluster with a freehost so I can just add more dual cpu servers to the cluster if it starts to slow down. Am I making to too complicated for myself? Its it worth it?

Originally posted by ClusterMania
Thanks to you guys I have decided to go with dual cpu servers. Now I am considering using beowulf to cluster the servers. I want to use the cluster with a freehost so I can just add more dual cpu servers to the cluster if it starts to slow down. Am I making to too complicated for myself? Its it worth it?

What are you going to use the servers for?

Beowulf isn't exactly fit for hosting :-)

Dual 1 Ghz cpu on freebsd. I thought I could create a inexpensive super server by clustering.

Cluster != Beowulf. Beowulfs are designed for running code using the PVM/MPI APIs, ie specially written scientific code.

Originally posted by cperciva
Cluster != Beowulf. Beowulfs are designed for running code using the PVM/MPI APIs, ie specially written scientific code.

So is is a good idea or a bad idea to use it for hosting.

A Beowulf will be much harder to set up but perform exactly the same as any other linux cluster on the same hardware -- a Beowulf is simply a linux cluster with some extra software installed... software which in this case would go completely unused.

As for the general question of using a cluster for web serving, it is quite possible, and a good idea, providing that you can solve the problem of having everyone's files accessible from all the different machines.