September 17, 2002 2:42 PM PDT Penn State plugs into Dell
cluster Penn State will use the new cluster, which currently has
80 nodes and will grow to 256, to carry out research in biology,
chemistry, physics and meteorology. Each of the 80 nodes is a
Dell PowerEdge server with dual Xeon processors from Intel and
RedHat's Linux operating system. The university has become the
latest customer to select Dell's cluster configurations as a way
to gain high-performance computing for less money. Dell also
recently unveiled a 2,008-node high-performance computing
cluster at the State University of New York in Buffalo. The
Round Rock, Texas, computer manufacturer is using these clusters
to get foothold in the high-performance computing market, once
dominated by supercomputers. The Buffalo computer cost about $4
million to build, while some supercomputers can cost in the
hundreds of millions. Clusters allow Dell to build the basic
computer out of regular servers using standard Intel processors
and off-the-shelf software