On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 01:10:50PM -0600, Troy.A Johnson wrote:
> I think Bob is thinking of a kind of distributed 
> processing more than clustering. 
	I'd still call that a variety of clustering.
PVM makes a number of machines work together on a single problem; as such, I
regard that as a 'cluster'.

> Clustering 
> seems (at least to me) to reduce the utility of 
> the hardware used for other purposes. 
	not from what I've seen of the Mosix project. there are a number of
ways to configure a mosix cluster; from full-time cluster member, to
'workstation that can submit jobs to cluster', to 'cluster member after
working hours'.

I don't know if mosix uses PVM (I think that's more of a separate
layer, that can be orthogonal to mosix cluster membership). but the priciple
holds (especially in bob's example); that any machine can be part of a
cluster (subject to administrative constraints), and participate with
minimal detriment to itself.

Carl.
-- 
Network Engineer
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com