Hello..

I think I might know your cluster... but thats a whole other story...

> We are going to setup a cluster of 16 identical nodes and 1 master node. 
> We've already have hardware setup now we have to install software to 
> make it run as a cluster. The way we want our cluster work is as 
> follows: users will send their requests to the master node; master node 
> will distribute the requests to the other nodes; the cluster should work 
> with any application software.

I'm not positive if this can be accomplished as seemlessly as you would 
like.  Under Linux I've seen people use something called BProc which 
allows the master node to run jobs just like you would on a large SMP 
machine.  Typically though most people use HPC clusters in a traditional 
Beowulf design which involves either a job queuing system (such as Sun 
Grid Engine, PBS/Torque, or Condor) or a MPI-based applications (using the 
software layers provided by MPICH or LAM-MPI).

> Our problem is we don't know what software we should use to make a 
> cluster and how to setup a cluster.  We would appreciate very much if 
> you could give us your advice.

My advise would be to set up a traditional Beowulf style cluster w/ a 
queuing system.  Most of the HPC communities out there are running this 
style of 'cluster' and thus should be easy to get help running 
applications w/in this style of environment.

Cheers!

-Mike