A cluster of nodes, comprising: a plurality of nodes, each having a security policy, and being associated task processing resources; a registration agent configured to register a node and issue a node certificate to the respective node; a communication network configured to communicate certificates to authorize access to computing resources, in accordance with the respective security policy; and a processor configured to automatically dynamically partition the plurality of nodes into subnets, based on at least a distance function of at least one node characteristic, each subnet designating a communication node for communicating control information and task data with other communication nodes, and to communicate control information between each node within the subnet and the communication node of the other subnets.