Types Of Computer Cluster
A computer cluster can be defined as a single logical unit comprising of many computers that are connected with the help of a LAN. In this way, the communicated computers basically act as a single and very powerful machine. Different types of computer clusters are quite helpful in rendering an enhanced processing speed, improved data integrity, superior reliability, big capacity for storage, and broader availability of resources. Nevertheless, the computer clusters are considered to be very expensive to implement as well as maintain. There are three main types of computer clusters which are helpful in providing many advantages. The fail-over cluster is the type of computer cluster in which the operation of the machine is monitored continuously and in case any of the host stops working, the other one takes over. The basic objective of this type of computer cluster is to ensure an uninterrupted service.
The loaded balance is the type of computer cluster in which the work requests are sent to the machine under burden. The third type of computer cluster is of high performance computing or HPC clusters which are actually configured to render a very eminent performance. In this type of clusters, the machine breaks down the procedures from one machine to many others to improve the overall performance. One of the prominent features of HPC type of computer clusters is that all the procedures are parallel and the routines running on different machines are disseminated separately. The HPC type of computer clusters is common particularly in the data centers.
Currently, almost 500 fastest computers all around the world consist of over 80% of high performance computing or HPC clusters. Another type of computer clusters is of visualization clusters which are actually an HPC cluster with an addition of powerful graphic cards. These graphic cards are generally patterned to work out in sync with one another and to tackle high resolutions. Moreover, these computer clusters help to add a high-powered 3D accelerated graphic cards to the nodes of the computer. On advanced level, the visualization clusters is delivered for military, universities, corporate customers, and government etc. there are a lot of sub-categories included in the visualization clusters such as 3D modeling, weather forecasting, DNA sequence analysis, protein folding simulations, WMD simulations, multi-user immersive virtual reality, environmental and climate modeling, and molecular nanotechnology.
The advanced clustering technologies have now developed a complete line of systems. The cloud computing is the type of computer cluster in which the computing is moved from any personal computer to cloud of computers. On the other hand, the grid computing is the type of computer cluster in which various independent computing clusters act like a grid. Majority of the organizations make usage of different types of computer clusters in order to maximize the working time and enhance the data storage. As compared to the mainframes and other types of computers, computer clusters can be easily upgraded so as to increase the existing specifications or also helps to add some extra constituents to the system.
