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Clustering: Mscs Cluster

Clustering connects multiple computers together to behave as a single computer. It enables parallel processing, load balancing, and fault tolerance. Clustering is a popular strategy for implementing parallel applications as it allows companies to leverage existing PC and workstation investments. Additional CPUs can be easily added by connecting more PCs to the network. Microsoft's clustering solution for Windows NT systems is called MSCS.

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8 views

Clustering: Mscs Cluster

Clustering connects multiple computers together to behave as a single computer. It enables parallel processing, load balancing, and fault tolerance. Clustering is a popular strategy for implementing parallel applications as it allows companies to leverage existing PC and workstation investments. Additional CPUs can be easily added by connecting more PCs to the network. Microsoft's clustering solution for Windows NT systems is called MSCS.

Uploaded by

ankit boxer
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Clustering

Connecting two or more computers together in such a way that they behave like a single computer. Clustering is used for parallel processing, load balancing and fault tolerance. Clustering is a popular strategy for implementing parallel processing applications because it enables companies to leverage the investment already made in PCs and workstations. In addition, it's relatively easy to add new CPUs simply by adding a new PC to the network. Microsoft's clustering solution for Windows NT systems is called MSCS. Also see cluster

parallel processing
The simultaneous use of more than one CPU to execute a program. Ideally, parallel processing makes a program run faster because there are more engines (CPUs) running it. In practice, it is often difficult to divide a program in such a way that separate CPUs can execute different portions without interfering with each other. Most computers have just one CPU, but some models have several. There are even computers with thousands of CPUs. With single-CPU computers, it is possible to perform parallel processing by connecting the computers in a network. However, this type of parallel processing requires very sophisticated software called distributed processing software. Note that parallel processing differs from multitasking, in which a single CPU executes several programs at once. Parallel processing is also called parallel computing.

load balancing
Distributing processing and communications activity evenly across a computer network so that no single device is overwhelmed. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it's difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. Busy Web sites typically employ two or more Web servers in a load balancing scheme. If one server starts to get swamped, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity. Load balancing can also refer to the communications channels themselves.

fault tolerance
The ability of a system to respond gracefully to an unexpected hardware or software failure. There are many levels of fault tolerance, the lowest being the ability to continue operation in the event of a power failure. Many faulttolerant computer systems mirror all operations -- that is, every operation is performed on two or more duplicate systems, so if one fails the other can take over

distributed processing

Refers to any of a variety of computer systems that use more than one computer, or processor, to run an application. This includes parallel processing, in which a single computer uses more than one CPU to execute programs. More often, however, distributed processing refers to local-area networks (LANs) designed so that a single program can run simultaneously at various sites. Most distributed processing systems contain sophisticated software that detects idle CPUs on the network and parcels out programs to utilize them. Another form of distributed processing involves distributed databases, databases in which the data is stored across two or more computer systems. The database system keeps track of where the data is so that the distributed nature of the database is not

Cluster
A group of disk sectors. The operating system assigns a unique number to each cluster and then keeps track of files according to which clusters they use. Occasionally, the operating system marks a cluster as being used even though it is not assigned to any file. This is called a lost cluster. You can free up disk space by reassigning lost clusters, but you should first make sure that the clusters do not, in fact, contain valuable data. In DOS and Windows, you can find lost clusters with the ScanDisk utility. DOS and Windows keep track of clusters with the File Allocation Table (FAT). The size of each cluster depends on the disk's partition size.

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