What is Cluster Computing?
According to Wikipedia: A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability.
Examples of Open Source Cluster Computing include a Beowulf Cluster and a Apache Hadoop Cluster.
Anyone can build their own Cluster Computer by using iPXE and netbooting using such platforms as iVentoy or Netboot.xyz to remote boot your existing workstations (after business hours) as a node in a Cluster Computer!
Why would you want Cluster Computing?
If you work in IT then, of course, you want to gain experience with important technologies.
If you are a large organisation, such as the Government of Canada, then you have a need for powerful computation. With 10s of thousands of employee workstations that sit idle after business hours, all these wasted cpu cycles can be harvested into a gigantic cluster computer with tremendous processing power!
The average small or mid-sized business could recover these idle cpu cycles to train machine learning models in-house instead of paying for processing power from Cloud Platforms such as Google Cloud or AWS.