Re:Sad (Score 4, Informative)

Becuase of your low UID, I'm guessing that you aren't asking what a Beowulf cluster is - so you're right on the mark with your comment. So for those Slashdotters who don't actually know what a Beowulf cluster is, here's my blurb (feel free to add/subtract/etc - this is paraphrased from a longer piece I wrote some time ago):

Beowulf aims at minimizing computation time. One option for reducing the processing time of a program is to divide it into independent sub-tasks that can be processed by different CPUs. When the results of these sub-tasks are available, they can be returned to one of the processors for final processing. It is possible to use Ethernet transfers to extend this strategy across multiple computers. This is how Beowulf works: divide programs into many parts that are executed by many CPUs all of which transfer their data and instructions via Ethernet.