Book Image

Raspberry Pi Super Cluster

By : Andrew K. Dennis
Book Image

Raspberry Pi Super Cluster

By: Andrew K. Dennis

Overview of this book

A cluster is a type of parallel/distributed processing system which consists of a collection of interconnected stand-alone computers cooperatively working together. Using Raspberry Pi computers, you can build a two-node parallel computing cluster which enhances performance and availability. This practical, example-oriented guide will teach you how to set up the hardware and operating systems of multiple Raspberry Pi computers to create your own cluster. It will then navigate you through how to install the necessary software to write your own programs such as Hadoop and MPICH before moving on to cover topics such as MapReduce. Throughout this book, you will explore the technology with the help of practical examples and tutorials to help you learn quickly and efficiently. Starting from a pile of hardware, with this book, you will be guided through exciting tutorials that will help you turn your hardware into your own super-computing cluster. You'll start out by learning how to set up your Raspberry Pi cluster's hardware. Following this, you will be taken through how to install the operating system, and you will also be given a taste of what parallel computing is about. With your Raspberry Pi cluster successfully set up, you will then install software such as MPI and Hadoop. Having reviewed some examples and written some programs that explore these two technologies, you will then wrap up with some fun ancillary projects. Finally, you will be provided with useful links to help take your projects to the next step.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Raspberry Pi Super Cluster
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 1. Clusters, Parallel Computing, and Raspberry Pi – A Brief Background

The domain of parallel computing is an interesting one, but building a cluster for fun has often required the use of expensive or bulky off-the-shelf hardware, such as desktop PC's or implementing complex virtual machine setups.

So what is a cluster? This term will come up often in the following chapters and essentially means, in the context of this book, a group of separate devices networked together. Each device on this network is often referred to as a node.

Thanks to the Raspberry Pi's low cost and small physical footprint, building a cluster to explore parallel computing has become far cheaper and easier for users at home to implement. Not only does it allow you to explore the software side, but also the hardware as well.

While Raspberry Pis wouldn't be suitable for a fully-fledged production system, they provide a great tool for learning the technologies that professional clusters are built upon. For example, they allow you to work with industry standards, such as MPI and cutting edge open source projects such as Hadoop.

This chapter will provide you with a basic background to parallel computing and the technologies associated with it. It will also provide you with an introduction to using the Raspberry Pi.