An Assessment of Beowulf-class Computing for NASA Requirements: Initial Findings from the First NASA Workshop on Beowulf-class Clustered Computing

The Beowulf class of parallel computing machine started as a small research project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences (CESDIS). From that work evolved a new class of scalable machine comprised of mass market common off-the-shelf components (MCOTS) using a freely available operating system and industry-standard software packages. A Beowulf-class system provides extraordinary benefits in price-performance. Beowulf-class systems are in place and doing real work at several NASA research centers, are supporting NASA-funded academic research, and operating at DOE and NIH. The NASA user community conducted an intense two-day workshop in Pasadena, California on October 22-23, 1997. This first workshop on Beowulf-class systems consisted primarily of technical discussions to establish the scope of opportunities, challenges, current research activities, and directions for NASA computing employing Beowulf-class systems. The technical discussions ranged from application research to programming methodologies. This paper provides an overview of the findings and conclusions of the workshop. The workshop determined that Beowulf-class systems can deliver multiGflops performance at unprecedented price-performance but that software environments were not fully functional or robust, especially for larger “dreadnought”-scale systems. It is recommended that the Beowulf community engage in an activity to integrate, port, or develop, where appropriate, necessary components of the software infrastructure to fully realize the potential of Beowulf-class computing to meet NASA and other agency computing requirements.