Serbia & Montenegro, Belgrade, November 22-24, 2005 Beowuif Clusters for Parallel Programming Courses Ilias Stavrakas, Theophanis Kontogiannis, Marios Panaousis, Maria Kaitsa, Ilias Daradimos, Theodoros Georgiou, George Blathras and Dimos Triantis. Abstract - This paper deals with the use of Beowulf clusters in higher education. The study and evaluation of a Beowulf cluster at the Department of Electronics Engineering of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens is described. The design methodologies, the performance measurements and the experiments will be discussed. This work enabled undergraduate and postgraduate students to study parallel systems and formed a perspective to introduce a parallel computing module in the undergraduate curriculum. Keywords - beowulf cluster, education, electronic engineering, parallel processing, parallel programming. I. INTRODUCTION PARALLEL processing rapidly becomes a reality [1]. It is an efficient way to calculate sizable numerical problems and perform difficult computation analysis in a sort time, compared to sequential processing [2]. Numerous efforts have already been made and the result was the development of parallel Operating Systems[3],[4], message passing libraries [5]-[7], distributed file systems and other parallel-working tools [8]-[12]. This work and its dissemination efforts have been funded by the Greek Operational Programme for Education and Initial Vocational Training (O. P. Education) under the action: 2.2.2. "Reformation of Undergraduate Studies Programs" I. Stavrakas is researcher with the Department of Electronics of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, GREECE. (phone: +30- 210-5385372; fax: +30-210-5316525; e-mail: ilias@ee.teiath.gr). He is valid IEEE member for the last six years. Member No.: 41317923. T. Kontogiannis is currently working for the University of the Aegean, Samos island, GREECE, as Computer Data Networks and Information Systems Head Engineer (email: tkontogaegean.gr). M. Panaousis is with the School of Engineering and Design of the Brunel University, London, UK, as M.Sc. student of Data Communication Systems course. M. Kaitsa is with the Department of Electronics of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, GREECE. I. Daradimos is with the Department of Electronics of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, GREECE, as Laboratory Instructor. (e-mail: dridgee.teiath.gr). T. Georgiou is Head of Operations with VC World Ltd, UK (phone +44 2073983520; fax: +44 2074919511; email: tgeorgiou@vc-net.net) valid IEE member since 2002, Member No.: 31875170. G. Blathras is with Proton Bank SA., GREECE, as Systems and Network Architect and Administrator. (e-mail: gbl@proton.gr). D. Triantis is Professor of the Department of Electronics of the Technological Educational Institute of Athens, GREECE, (phone: +30- 210-5385357; fax: +30-210-5316525; e-mail: triantisgee.teiath.gr). The term "Beowulf cluster" denotes an heterogeneous pile of Commercial off the Self (COTS) computers (i.e. old PCs), connected via a dedicated private network, running an Open Source, usually Linux based OS and a lot of parallel software packages, implementing a MIMD (Multiple Instruction Multiple Data) architecture [13],[14]. The historically first Beowulf cluster was assembled in 1993 at the Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences (CESDIS), by Donald Becker and Thomas Sterling. Since then, clustering has become incredibly popular and the appearance of more efficient and well-designed systems is now a reality [1],[15],[16]. Several Beowulf implementations are available to support fields like education [14],[17],[18], research [19]- [21], physics [22],[23], neural networks [24] and science in general [25],[26]. Electronic Engineering is one of the most rapidly evolving scientific fields of applied science. Students attending courses in Electronics are required to face cutting edge technology issues throughout their studies. As a result, students have to develop the ability to cope with high-tech applications introduced by the international engineering community. Beowulf clusters are a cost effective solution to demonstrate and teach parallel programming concepts and computing time, intensive applications. This work describes the design, assembling and usage of a Beowulf Cluster at the Networks & Computing Laboratory (NCL) of the Department of the Electronics Engineering of Technological Educational Institute of Athens (T.E.I.). Also the methods of conducting performance measurements and experiments will be discussed. In order to smoothly introduce this technology to the students, a Beowulf cluster was set up in such a way that was easy to use and provide a common working environment to be accessed by the students at any time. This cluster, named Titan (see www.beowulf.gr), is an heterogeneous Beowulf cluster comprising a master node and 20 slave nodes, part of the equipment already available at the NCL. Titan's major scope is to serve the needs of parallel programming courses. II. CLUSTER DESCRIPTION The main difference between other Beowulf Clusters and Titan is that the NCL has implemented a dual configuration topology for both cluster and native PC usages. 1-4244-0049-X/05/$20.00 (C2005 IEEE EUROCON 2005 791