B-I
Beowulf-class system
commodity cluster employing personal computers or low-cost SMP servers to achieve excellent price-performance initially developed by the Beowulf project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
bit
the fundamental unit of information representing a two-state value; a digital circuit capable of storing a two-state value
BLAS
basic linear algebra subroutines
bps
bits per second, a unit measure of data transfer rate
byte
a commonly addressed quantity of digital information storage of eight bits reflecting one of 256 distinct values
cluster
in the general sense, any interconnected ensemble of computers capable of independent operation but employed to service a common workload
commodity cluster
a cluster of commercial computing nodes integrated with a commercial system area network
constellation
a cluster of large DSM, SMP, or MPP computing nodes incorporating more microprocessors per node than there are nodes in the system
COW
cluster of workstations; an early project at the University of Wisconsin
DSM
distributed shared memory multiprocessor, tightly coupled cache coherent multiprocessor with non-uniform memory access
EPIC
Explicitly Parallel Instruction Computing
Ethernet
the first widely used and truly ubiquitous local area network operating at 10 Mbps
Fast Ethernet
a cost effective local area network based on the original Ethernet protocol that has become very popular with low end Beowulf-class systems; providing 100 Mbps
Gigabit Ethernet
a LAN that is the successor of Fast Ethernet providing peak bandwidth of 1 Gbps.
GNU
a project resulting in a number of open source and free software tools including the GNU C compiler and Emacs
GPL
GNU Public License; a legal framework protecting open source software
HDF
Hierarchical data format, both a file format and high level interface for I/O access in both sequential and parallel applications
HPL
High Performance Linpack
Infiniband
a system-area network designed to provide high performance and to provide a path for rapid improvement in network bandwidth.
ISA
Instruction Set Architecture
