Re-purposing computers as a cluster for academic institutions
Irisann Maria Agius, Frankie Inguanez · 2019
Over the past few years, MCAST has been increasing its commitment towards research, yet a common limitation is the availability of processing power by our researchers. Whilst funding is available for the setting up of classroom computers, there isn't enough funding for high-end processing infrastructure for research purposes. We have thus undertaken a research project to explore the possibility of repurposing existing computer systems and have them work in a cluster during out-of-office hours to address just this need. In this initial phase of our research, we are presenting our findings on a simple proof of concept using seven single-board computers benchmarked as a Beowulf and Dispy clusters. The intention is to further this research by testing up to 25 single-board computers then to migrate our setup and findings to 120 computers. Our findings in this research are very encouraging and justify the next phases of this project.