Beowulf cluster

A beowulf cluster is a bunch of fairly regular PCs that have been networked together, and are used for supercomputing type purposes.

Oberlin has a beowulf in the Science Center, which is operated and maintained by Ned, and is largely overseen by Manish Mehta and Dan Stinebring. Oberlin's beowulf is known affectionately as the Science Appliance, because it is used by traditional scientists (i.e. physics/chem/bio) as a tool.

The Science Appliance was funded by an NSF grant co-written by Mehta, Stinebring, Matt Elrod, and John Karro.