Development of a Low Cost Cluster Computer Using Raspberry Pi

A cluster computer provides much faster processing speed, larger storage capacity, better data integrity, superior reliability and wider availability of resources. In the present work, we have developed a cluster computer using five Raspberry Pi’s (one master and four slave nodes) that acts as a single computer with enhanced processing speed. A Linux based operating system, Raspbian is used in the present work, to manage and access the Raspberry Pi in master node. Message Pass Interface (MPI) protocol is used to share the task among the nodes for parallel processing. The designed cluster computer has been tested using standard programs in C and python. The developed cluster computer is found to work successfully. The facilities of the present cluster computer would be extended to develop a virtual private network (VPN) server for clustering the computer present at the different geographical locations and data mining.