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Re:Linux dominates supercomputers as never before by TallGuyShort on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @11:51AM (#7944710)
In addition to just the networking hardware, the networking stacks and topologies are very different. I would consider something a supercomputer if it was using a high-dimension torus topology, and some MPI variant, and a different internet / transport protocol (I forget the name, but as I understand it's a very different approach where there's much less decision making in the routers). On the other hand, what I would consider to be a cluster is almost going to use off-the-shelf networking hardware (as you mention), TCP/IP, and a simpler hierarchical topology with a switch or two per rack.

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