~~~~Informatics~~~~

Chapter 1: Understanding Clusters and Your Needs 1.1 Writing a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a cluster that will succeed Picture yourself in the early 1980s. You are assigned the task of designing a new computing system. Your guidelines are slim at best. The situation can only be described as: "I don't know what I want, but I will know it when I see it." The only defense against this type of statement is to sit down and write what is called a Request for Proposal. The Request for Proposal would possibly look like: I don't know what I want in a computer system, but it should provide at least the following characteristics: § Availability § Reliability § Scalability The design of the cluster computer system evolved as an answer to such a Request for Proposal. The term "cluster" as it applies to the computer industry was popularized by Digital Computer Corporation in early 1983 with VMS version 3.7. Two VAX 11/750s maintained cluster communication at the rate o