Exploring Elixir Application Clustering

The article discusses Elixir's inherited capabilities from Erlang for creating distributed, scalable systems through 'clustering', which allows multiple runtime systems to act as a single, connected unit. Mark Ericksen details how to cluster an Elixir application on a local machine, such as a laptop, with one deployed on Fly.io, which can benefit AI/ML development, testing of distributed systems, or just for the inherent coolness of the tech. He outlines the practical steps to achieve clustering, leveraging Fly.io's documentation and tools such as WireGuard VPN and bash scripts to handle the setup and connection process. This enables developers to utilize Fly.io's fast booting VMs and GPUs for more compute-intensive tasks or to monitor and interact with remote applications as if they were local.