Performance of a Virtual Cluster in a General-Purpose Teaching Laboratory

Abstract

Through virtualization, a Beowulf cluster running on the physical hardware and network of a general-purpose teaching laboratory can provide significant computational power without compromising-in fact increasing-the educational value of the lab machines. After describing our implementation of such a virtual cluster in a teaching lab, we analyze its performance by comparing benchmark results to those of an equivalent dedicated (native) cluster and investigate expedient improvements to our design.