Cluster Question

[ItsMurf]

I have a Pi2 and a PiB and I was wondering if there was any way to cluster them together?


Would it be worth it?


Or is it not possible due to OS's?

[fsr]

define what you mean by 'cluster'.

[fsr]

or to elaborate, it is something in an application stack that clusters (databases, web server etc).
The hardware remains discrete (it has its own identity, own name, own mac address, own ip and so on).

So the question should be how do you cluster tomcat? for example.

and yes linux is capable of it

[rpdom]

Generally a Pi cluster is only useful as an experiment. The processing power vs. cost of coupling them together is poor compared to a cheap PC. One of the main problem is the speed of inter-unit communication is limited by the network/USB bandwidth.

Having said that, some things are suited to running on multiple Raspis. There is a "make" command that will compile various parts of a program on individual systems (as long as all have access to a share file system location), which can speed up kernel compilation, but the quad-core Pi2 will be better at that on its own.

[ItsMurf]

define what you mean by 'cluster'.

Cluster meaning multiple Pi's (B and 2) connected together to get higher or better power.

[ItsMurf]

Generally a Pi cluster is only useful as an experiment. The processing power vs. cost of coupling them together is poor compared to a cheap PC. One of the main problem is the speed of inter-unit communication is limited by the network/USB bandwidth.

Having said that, some things are suited to running on multiple Raspis. There is a "make" command that will compile various parts of a program on individual systems (as long as all have access to a share file system location), which can speed up kernel compilation, but the quad-core Pi2 will be better at that on its own.

Thank You Kind Sir!

[GTR2Fan]

Your Pi2B has roughly 6x the processing power of your PiB, so there's virtually nothing to be gained by 'clustering' the two anyway.

[ItsMurf]

Your Pi2B has roughly 6x the processing power of your PiB, so there's virtually nothing to be gained by 'clustering' the two anyway.

Alright, sounds good.

Thank You!

[stderr]

define what you mean by 'cluster'.

Cluster meaning multiple Pi's (B and 2) connected together to get higher or better power.

You may find yourself needing to run more than one browser, an editor, compiler, server, etc. and running them all on the same board slows things down. In that case, you can divide them up between various systems and view them all on your main system.

If you had four pi2 boards, you'd have 16 cores and 4gig of RAM to spread out between all those requirements. This will work and people really should be doing it more than most do, which is to say that most don't do this at all.

When people ask about clusters, I think they mean can they just add the processors up and get one big really fast processor. Of course they can't do that. But they shouldn't be utterly dismayed because that might even be what they really need.

[ItsMurf]

define what you mean by 'cluster'.

Cluster meaning multiple Pi's (B and 2) connected together to get higher or better power.

You may find yourself needing to run more than one browser, an editor, compiler, server, etc. and running them all on the same board slows things down. In that case, you can divide them up between various systems and view them all on your main system.

If you had four pi2 boards, you'd have 16 cores and 4gig of RAM to spread out between all those requirements. This will work and people really should be doing it more than most do, which is to say that most don't do this at all.

When people ask about clusters, I think they mean can they just add the processors up and get one big really fast processor. Of course they can't do that. But they shouldn't be utterly dismayed because that might even be what they really need.

Thank you sir.

This clears lots of things up.