Synonyms: virtual machine (VM) instances, server

A node is a server resource, an addressable compute or storage unit (often supporting an ip-address). A node can either be:

• virtual: an abstraction to virtualize system resources. A node that is virtual can be a virtual machine, which uses some hypervisor technology, or even a linux container.
• physical: no virtualization, and often called “bare metal”

A node can exclusively be for storage or compute, or can serve both purposes.

Example

A Kubernetes node is typically intended for compute, as the unit for storage would be called a volume. A node deployed for HPC typically takes on one role or a hybrid approach. Nodes can be shared or exclusive (see allocation type). At a high level, a “node” might refer to an instance on a cloud provider, a “node” in Kubernetes [ref], or a bare metal machine. It is an abstraction for a base machine.

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Suggested Citation:

Converged Computing Authors. "Nodes." Converged Computing Community Space 04 May 2024, https://converged-computing.org/docs/nodes/ (accessed 04 May 24). [doi]