In this paper, we implement a Hadoop based cluster for cloud computing and evaluate the performance of this cluster based on application characteristics by executing RandomTextWriter, WordCount, and PI applications. A RandomTextWriter creates given amount of random words and stores them in the HDFS(Hadoop Distributed File System). A WordCount reads an input file and determines the frequency of a given word per block unit. PI application induces PI value using the Monte Carlo law. During simulation, we investigate the effect of data block size and the number of replications on the execution time of applications. Through simulation, we have confirmed that the execution time of RandomTextWriter was proportional to the number of replications. However, the execution time of WordCount and PI were not affected by the number of replications. Moreover, the