This article was originally published in ClusterWorld Magazine, March 2004
HPC Masters: Bill Gropp on Commodity Software
Is cluster software any good? Just looking at the applications, from Google to fluid modeling, the answer is clearly yes. Clusters and the software that enables them have made vast amounts of computing power available to thousands of people. But there is a selection effect here. People who can use clusters to get their work done have, by definition, found the software at least adequate. What about everyone else? What about the people who talk of the software crisis or the scientists that have tried clusters and given up on them? Can we avoid becoming another elite group, composed of those people stubborn or influential enough to get the software that they want? Is cluster software good or bad?

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