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In recent past, many types of shared memory cluster computing interconnection systems have been proposed. Each of these systems has its own advantages and limitations. With the increase in system size of the cluster interconnection systems, the comparative analysis of their various performance measures becomes quite inevitable. The cluster architecture, load balancing, and fault tolerance are some of the important aspects, which need to be addressed. The comparison needs to be made in order to choose the best one for a particular application. In this paper, a detailed comparative study on four important and different classes of shared memory cluster architectures has been made. The systems taken up for the purpose of the study are shared memory clusters, hierarchical shared memory clusters, distributed shared memory clusters, and the virtual distributed shared memory clusters. These clusters are analyzed and compared on the basis of the architecture, load balancing, and fault tolerance aspects. The results of comparison are reported.