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Sun Microsystems Education Software Linux

Sun Donation Spurs Linux Cluster at Purdue 253

Posted by CowboyNeal from the old-computers-and-new-opportunities dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Purdue University, with a $3.6 million gift from Sun Microsystems, is giving recycled PCs new life as a computer cluster that makes high-performance computing power available in undergraduate classes. 'Previously, my students could only do what I'd describe as 'proof' animations - small, low-resolution and not presentation quality,' [Professor Richard] Paul said. 'With access to this computing power, the students will be able to ship their software files of instructions to the Linux cluster, and it will come back in three or four hours with modeling, lighting and animation. Students will get to experience the whole thing in terms of scale and presence, and they can do longer animations.' More images of the current Linux cluster and other servers at Purdue are out there."
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Sun Donation Spurs Linux Cluster at Purdue More

Sun Donation Spurs Linux Cluster at Purdue

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  • LOCs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) * on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:16PM (#7369079) Homepage
    'With access to this computing power, the students will be able to ship their software files of instructions to the Linux cluster, and it will come back in three or four hours with modeling, lighting and animation

    I'm sure glad he didn't use an arcane technical word like "program". That sure would have confused the layman. By the way, how many Libraries of Congress can the cluster store?

    • Re:LOCs? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Disco Stew ( 703497 )
      You must not have got the memo.

      'software files of instructions' is the official terminology now.

    • Re:LOCs? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Perhaps person was referring to files saved by various animation programs, not necessarily actual program code. Not accurate in either case, but what's the big deal?

  • great (Score:2, Funny)

    by digitalsushi ( 137809 ) *
    great. now there's little kids crying everywhere [purdue.edu]. last time i browse in the living room.

  • Recycled? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bobthemuse ( 574400 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:22PM (#7369094)
    These are recycled PCs? They all look identical

    • Re:Recycled? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by spektr ( 466069 )
      These are recycled PCs? They all look identical

      Whaaat? Recycled PCs without casemoddings, without exorbitant cooling solutions, not even a little tattoo on the frontside? All identical? What the hell have the previous owners done with these machines? This might be a cluster of lonely and neglected hardware. A cluster who could need a biiig hug.
    • Dunno about you, but at the university I went to the library and computer labs were full of identical PCs. Not unthinkable that they might have had a job lot of identical hardware lying around.

      I know what you mean though, they do look quite new.

    • Re:Recycled? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Brightest Light ( 552357 )
      They're all identical because they're the old computers from the ITaP Computer labs. As a Purdue Student (McCutcheon North REPRESENT!) I can't say I'm too broken up about seeing them replaced with the newer (and faster!) Dells.

      • Re:Recycled? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by ruiner13 ( 527499 )
        Real men still call it PUCC. ITaP is run by a bunch of morons, none more evil than this man, Steven Dunlop [purdue.edu]. In a former life, I was the lead programmer of a project he was hired on to "direct". The man actually said, and I quote, "I'm not that good at searching the internet, is there any way you can put it on a CD-ROM for me?". I shit you not. His first day on the job. Lucky for him, it is almost impossible to get fired from Purdue. He only drove a 3 million dollar NSF grant funded biology CD-ROM pro
      • So why not use the Dells?

        At our university we simply let our ~300 student lab PCs transmogrify into a big honkin linux cluster during nights. Just que up your work and pick up the results the next day.

        OK, so we don't have fancy schmancy myrinet and gigs of ram in each node but it's perfect for student work, and research too.

        Several of our researchers have been able move all their simulations to the cluster and others have done extensive prepareations and testruns before they bought expensive time on the
  • Can anybody tell me what, these [purdue.edu] are?

  • this makes me laugh (Score:5, Funny)

    by narkotix ( 576944 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:25PM (#7369105)
    In addition to the Sun Mircosystems gift, Morgan J. Burke, director of intercollegiate athletics, will announce a $1.2 million gift from Cisco Systems Inc. that is enabling Purdue sports fans to access real-time football game data via wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs)

    havent they heard of a little device called an AM radio?
    • simply not sufficient to reach Boilermaker fans far away, say, in California, etc. Sounds like an alum at Cisco might have had a hand in this donation.

      • Re:AM radio range is? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Carewolf ( 581105 ) *
        I think you got it the wrong way. AM radio is the one with the long range. FM radio has a shorter range, because it takes more power and can only travel in straight lines. AM radio bounces, and can therefore travel beyond the horizon.

        For this reason AM radio is used on sea when satelitte-transmissions are too expensive.

  • Solaris ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by zymano ( 581466 )
    Donating all that equipment and no Solaris operating system ?

    • gracious loser (Score:3, Informative)

      by SHEENmaster ( 581283 )
      Sun never bothered to port their UltraSparc beowulf-like clustering system to X86, and they stopped ripping off Linux code after the whole ethernet module fiasco a few years ago.

      Hence, no X86 clustering support with Solaris.

  • The sad thing... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:33PM (#7369140) Homepage
    The sad thing is that any one of those recycled PCs is probably more powerful than the one on my desk :o(

  • Just like the old days (Score:4, Funny)

    by Saint Aardvark ( 159009 ) * on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:35PM (#7369147) Homepage Journal
    "Previously, my students could only do what I'd describe as 'proof' animations small, low-resolution and not presentation quality," Paul said. "With access to this computing power, the students will be able to ship their software files of instructions to the Linux cluster, and it will come back in three or four hours with modeling, lighting and animation. Students will get to experience the whole thing in terms of scale and presence, and they can do longer animations."

    Interesting...like what used to happen with print jobs. How long 'til a student goes to the sysadmin on duty asking for their animation job to be niced down a point or two?

  • Computer Graphics students (Score:3, Informative)

    by mrt300 ( 580362 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:35PM (#7369150) Homepage
    I have a good friend who is a CG major at Purdue. There were always difficulties in trying to get even simple animation projects rendered in a timely manner. This is a great resource for students who are really trying to get their projects done in a snap, who can see the results of their efforts a little sooner than a full day later.
  • Hey does anybody from Purdue know if this is in the Math building or MSEE? (or somewhere else)
    Purdue has been using clusters for some time, there was a cluster being used in Civil Engineering of all places a few years ago to model bridges and other structures. Been too long since I graduated, I should go back for a tour.
    P.S.--> A bit OT but Debian has Purdue roots since Ian Murdock went there.
    • I believe those pictures are from the computer rooms under the math building (curse the lack of perl skills that kept me from getting a job there). I recall seeing a linux cluster on the lowest floor of the undergrad library, as well.
      • Yes, there is one in the DLC. Or at least there was; I haven't been in there in a while. IIRC, they were used for rendering as well, and may be the same exact machines, just transplanted into MATH. Either way, we've had Linux clusters long before Sun's magic "donation."


    • > Hey does anybody from Purdue know if this is in the Math building or MSEE? (or somewhere else)

      What are you going to do, steal it?

    • It looks like it may be on the top floor of the CS building. Thats where they keep all the systems specific to the Computer Science department.
    • "Hey does anybody from Purdue know if this is in the Math building or MSEE? (or somewhere else) Purdue has been using clusters for some time, there was a cluster being used in Civil Engineering of all places a few years ago to model bridges and other structures. Been too long since I graduated, I should go back for a tour.

      RTFA: In big text at the top of the page:

      "Images from the Purdue University Machine Room in the basement of the Math Building."

      • Re:Where on campus? (Score:3, Informative)

        by mdpowell ( 256664 )
        These ITAP (formerly PUCC) clusters are in the Math buidling. You're thinking of some of the ECE clusers in the MSEE machine room and in MSEE214. We still have those too, but they're limited to ECE research use (i.e., me!).

        The guy who ran the cluster in Civil (Moffett, quoted in the article) moved over to ITAP and helped start this thing about 1.5 years ago or so.

        As far as I know, the donation from Sun had nothing to do with creating this cluster--that's just media spin. It may have something to do with
        • And since the university has it's own power plant, it doesn't have to pay retail prices for the elctricity that runs them (or anything else).

          But that plant only powers half the campus. I don't know, which half :-)
        • And since the university has it's own power plant, it doesn't have to pay retail prices for the elctricity that runs them

          I don't know if the Math building is on it though, because herald.cc (the mail-hub) got knocked offline thanks to that little power outage last Friday.... I couldn't get my e-mail for a while. ECN was even worse as it took for-f'in-ever to bring shay (the ECE undergrad server) back up, which meant no logging into any Linux or Sun machines, either.
  • The PCs pictured in the cluster are Deskpro EPs. These have got to be the last of the breed of good old heavy duty steel, roomy cases. Yeah, the crap 440EX chipset and ATI RAGE video isn't so hot, but the case is actually industry standard (a rarity at Compaq), has tons of expansion room, can be rotated to desktop or tower configuration, and best of all IS FRICKIN HEAVY AS HELL!
    • Yep, they're either EP's or EN's large, heavy bulky, and unreliable as workstations. I avoided working on these when they came out in 99, The shop I worked at then decided to switch over to Dell's after the DeskPro 2000 disaster boxes.
    • Actually, I was a little surprised to see how heavy-duty the Apple PowerMac G5 tower's case is. I knew it was all aluminum construction and all that... but when you actually get to play around with one first-hand and open it up, you realize everything is heavy, and feels quite solid. Reminds me of the way systems *used* to be built - when people really thought they'd be in use for 10+ years before getting swapped out for something new.....

      Besides the new G5 though, I haven't seen any PCs in current produ
  • I think I've landed on my new bedroom decor. . . Alos, imagine, if you will, a Beowa%Lg9)

  • Is there a business model here ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by leoaugust ( 665240 ) <leoaugust@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Saturday November 01, 2003 @10:56PM (#7369206) Journal
    I have always wondered if there was a business model - conceptually similar to Akamai speeding up the "last hop" delivery - where all the computation intensive files for 3D modelling etc could be sent, and the the end product shipped back.

    A lot of my friends doing 3D modeliing would do the stuff and then have to let the rendering take place for 24 plus hours ... maybe a service where computation power, which is routinely available in most universities, can be made available to non-students may have a business value. They ship the files to the computation center which can then do the rendering and ship it back in a few minutes (rather than 24 hours) to the graphic artist ...

    Of course the business will disappear if grid computing, or something based on the P2P infrastructure can be succesfully established, but till that time maybe there is a business model here.

    • It depends what you're doing really. If it's just stills with vast amounts of raytracing and shadows on then it might be easy to send off and get the images back. If it's rendering into uncompressed high-res video for compositing later then it might mean moving a couple of gig of data back afterwards, which is something of a pain on anything other than a LAN.

      Maybe they could send the data back on DVD or something, although that might take a lot longer depending on location.

      I sometimes wish I could send my

    • Re:Is there a business model here ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by tolldog ( 1571 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @11:40PM (#7369364) Homepage Journal
      There are companies that provide render resources. They are great if you are a small studio and only go to final render once ever so often. They are expensive if they are your only resourse.

      For a past project, we priced out outsourcing our final renders and discovered that it would have cost us $6M to render on $1M worth of hardware for about 4 months. Prices may have changed since. We dropped the money and brought in 400 boxes because we could have reused the machines for future projects.

      But studios of 10-20 people, its not a bad idea. When it hits crunch time, its always good to have a couple hundred extra machines to get stuff done.

      -Tim
  • hey, if I had this cluster when I did my CS, I could have gotten away with writing, bad/bloated 3D rendering libraries.... hehe.
  • It sounds like most of the cluster is just refurbished Intel PC's with the Sun gift comprising of " five new Sun Fire 6800 servers and two refurbished Enterprise 10000s". So what do these Sun machines do for the cluster? And are these Sun servers running Linux or Solaris?

  • More details? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tolldog ( 1571 ) on Saturday November 01, 2003 @11:49PM (#7369401) Homepage Journal
    Seeing that this is something near and dear to me (having built and ran render farms) I would love to know more information on what they are using to manage the renders... what batch queueing software, what render software, what animation and modelling software? I would love to know how they approached the problem.

    My experience in the past was with Maya covering all the 3d and LSF from Platform for the queue management. Wrote some perl scripts for the frontend and for the backend of the system, did some database calls so that people could resubmit jobs if they failed without having to look up all the settings agin, also forced some uniformity to how it was submitted...

    I know that student projects aren't the same as feature films or half hour animations, and managing for 60 artits on 500 procs is not the same as keeping students rendering, but it is still the same basic task.

    And a bit of advice from somebody who runs such systems for a living... Just because the horsepower is there and it seems like you will be the only one using the system, if you can spend a few more minutes optimizing the models and the textures, it is worth it. Also take advantage of using layers and simple A over B composites. It will save you time in the long run, and it is possible that others may hit crunch time the same time you do. Computer resources are finite. Anything you can do to use as little of it as possible makes it easier for everybody to make deadlines. And if you do make it into the industry, it will be even more valuable, because your stuff with go through with less problems, and be less costly, and people notice that.

    -Tim

    • Re:More details? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bjq ( 250686 )
      You can use Maya 5 or 3dsmax 5. You submit the jobs via specific lab computers and get email notification when the job begins and finishes rendering.

      More details are available at pete.purdue.edu [purdue.edu].
      • Hmm... not much details into how the queueing works. Or how the renders get split up. Anybody with more details, would love to "talk shop".

        Looks like they have a few options for modeling and rendering.

        -Tim
  • After looking at this picture [purdue.edu] i see a zip drive, floppy, and cdrom in every computer. I can understand a cdrom and maybe a floppy but why does EVERY computer in that cluster need a zip drive? seems like a waste of $ to me
    • The PCs themselves came from university computer labs, which is why they had ZIP drives in them. Purdue has ZIP drives in all lab machines, and the article says these machines were used for 2-3 years in the labs. Apparently the Sun donation was for the server hardware, and not the actual cluster machines.
  • The project, using what IT pros call a Beowulf-style, parallel-computer approach

    \ damn, imagine that. a real beowulf cluster of those!!

  • Why Perdue? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wouter Van Hemel ( 411877 ) on Sunday November 02, 2003 @12:49AM (#7369615) Homepage

    Why donate computers to a university, as opposed to the poor in other continents or even in own country? Just so they could have a bigger cluster for animations? In my eyes, that doesn't make sense.

    What's in it for Sun?
    • Maybe Sun should donate the money to you so that you can afford some spell checking software along with your desires to purchase world peace. Last time I checked Purdue didn't have a 'e' as the second letter.
    • Reason one: a tax break in the US system

      Reason two: No amount of money will solve the problems facing the poor in other nations (or for that matter in the US).

      Sadly this money always seems to increase the problems rather than solve them.
    • Because the state of Indiana is likely going to freeze all higher education funding for the next 10 years, which means that Purdue will be receiving the exact same amount of money every year for the next 10 years that they got this year. So while their costs go up, their budget does not.

      Indiana wants to improve their economy, but refuses to support higher education, and therefore will not get better anytime soon since it is still very heavily reliant on manufacturing and farming.

    • Re:Why Perdue? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Nick of NSTime ( 597712 ) on Sunday November 02, 2003 @12:43PM (#7371181)
      What is an impoverished person going to do with a supercomputer? High-powered calculations of negative numbers?
    • $3.6 million will buy an awful lot of Perdue chickens [perdue.com], it'll feed a lot of poor students for quite some time.

  • Are there any interesting innovations in cooling clusters of computers? Are most clusters and main computer rooms still cooled by central air-conditioning?

    Nuclear submarines show us that given the space constraints and enough money, cooling solutions can become very interesting.

    Just wondering out loud.

  • What about power wasting ? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What about power wasting ?

    this got marked -1 off topic, but power consumption is a fixed cost associated with running a cluster and VERY relevant in budgeting a cluster.

    Electrical costs make this a White elephant gift!

    The Dual G5 VT cluster (1,100 dual g5 macs) is not only rated as the 3rd fastest super computer on at www.top500.org next november, it is also one of the cheapest per kilowatt hour to run, not super cheap, but cheap enough.

    These machines from sun suck down the electricity and provide measl
  • "Many think of using high-performance computing for computational science and research," Bottum said. "At Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), our mission is to support learning as well as discovery. While research is critical, we're also building for the classroom."

    But now students can print "Hello World!" in ray-traced, spinning, textured 3-D letters. Yay!
  • I thought linking to pr0n is illegal on /. ?

    (/me engeener)

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