In my code the system command calls another program to run on the remote node. The program on the remote node can take several hours to run. So I think I need the explicit perl 'fork' command, so that I can start, for example, 24 independent calculations on 24 different compute nodes (computers) all running at the same time.

I think a loop through system calls would run them serially. Even if system exited without waiting for the program to finish this would be undersirable for my needs. I need the parent process to monitor when the child (the program on the remote node) is finished.

Thanks for the explanation of 'clobbering'!