The cluster is a universal tool for increasing productivity

An interesting situation has developed in the modern IT market. Powerful servers, which cost several dozen times more expensive than conventional personal computers, outperform them in only two to three times the maximum. The question is, why pay more if you can use the excellent technology and combine several disparate personal computers into a cluster. This will help you save money and do not lose in power, which is necessary for certain purposes. In addition, in the bonus you get a duplicated system. A failover cluster will allow you to build an ultra-reliable system.

Cluster technology is widely used in various fields of activity, where only the use of powerful computers is necessary. A cluster is a certain group (tens, hundreds, thousands) of disparate computers, united in such a way that it is an integral resource for carrying out calculations. At the same time, despite the large number of components, it is seen as a single whole.

One of the main reasons for the emergence of the technology of combining computers in a cluster is the wide popularity of the Internet and its wild growth rates. The growth in the number of transmitted information necessitated the need for powerful processing systems. But the hardware, for all its technological sophistication, can not always cope with the tasks assigned to it. Therefore, there was a need to combine this hardware part for the performance of global tasks. In addition, the high reliability that a cluster of servers could provide was necessary for large corporations that store huge amounts of information.

By their territorial location, the clusters are divided into centralized and decentralized. The first, as a rule, are located within one room, the latter, on the contrary, can be scattered at considerable distances from each other. Increasingly, this technology is used in the field of computing, for which high hardware performance is required.

High quality of connecting components, high power of individual stations at huge speeds of processing information flows - everything that is integrated into a cluster is a huge device that allows performing tasks of absolutely any complexity: from simulation of catastrophes to controlling collisions of atoms at light speeds.

The next stage in the development of network technologies may well be a matrix computing system. Its essence lies in the fact that the work-free resources of all computers and devices that make up the network are used to solve global problems. This is achieved by parallel processing of information.

Cluster systems have a number of advantages over conventional monoblock structures. They are much more productive, more powerful and reliable. With the use of cluster technology, it is possible to achieve the solution of almost any set tasks, regardless of the level of complexity.