One question that is commonly enough asked on the beowulf list is ``How hard is it to build or care for a beowulf?''
The answer is often asked in the context of trying to figure out the human costs of beowulf construction or maintenance. After all, it may well be that beowulfs are ten times cheaper than an equivalent power piece of ``big iron'', but what if it costs ten times as much in human labor to build or run? This is a valid concern, especially in a shop with limited human resources or with little linux expertise.
The answer, fortunately, is that it is not difficult at all to build, and once built and configured, it is extremely easy (and cheap!) to maintain. Linux (or at least some sort of Unix) expertise is obviously very useful, but with a number of well-supported linux box-set distributions that come very near to fully supporting beowulfery out of the box, it is even possible to go into beowulfery with no more than a limited understanding of networking and a willingness to learn.
This chapter is organized into three sections. The first one covers what you need to do after you've more or less determined your beowulf architecture and scale but before you actually purchase the components. The second one covers the assembly of the components, and includes a few clever tricks and ideas that have been contributed over the years on the linux list, as well as a few gotchas. The third section covers how to take care of the beowulf once it is built and running. It is pretty boring, as once it is properly installed linux is boringly stable; most of the required maintenance is just standard Unix maintenance of the server(s) (backing them up and so forth), fixing hardware if and as it breaks, and possibly helping and educating users.