World's Fastest Supercomputer to be Linux 108
xinit was one of the people who pointed us to the CNET story running about the possibility that a current bid by SGI for a supercomputer could be run on Linux. The supercomputer could be the fastest in the world at time of its production. SGI has confirmed the bid, saying it's being targeted for 2001, if the bid is accepted. The placement would be Los Alamos National Laboratory.
No (Score:1)
Perhaps we need a new term for a product that even the company which is supposed to be developing it is unwilling to speculate on.
Any votes for:
assware (as in the journalist pulled one out of his ass).
deadlineware (just meeting a deadline)
slashdotware (targeted at attracting the
pipedreamware...
you get the picture
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Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:4)
SGI also makes massively parallel computers, which if properly configured (read lots and lots of processors) are supercomputer class machines. These machines presently run, hold on to your hats, IRIX. These machines presently use MIPS processors. One of these machines is part of the ASCI contract (Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative) and is based on an Origin 2000 system [sgi.com].
Right now SGI is developing CC-NUMA computers (the same multiprocessing technology behind the Origin 2000 computers) using Intel IA-64 processors. Rather than attempting to port IRIX to an Intel processor or pretending that Windows NT will scale SGI is relying on Linux. Right now Linux can't do it, but SGI is working on improving that aspect of Linux. This is all stuff thats been posted to slashdot before. Here's a blurb [fi.udc.es] to that effect.
Supercomputer != Big Iron (Score:3)
Linux will continue to thrive in the low-end and will migrate up to more and more powerful servers as they get cheaper and used more generally. High Availability solutions are already beginning to surface, as with TurboLinux. This will probably be the way to go for most modest sized enterprise applications.
The only way Linux will get onto a Big Iron box is for SGI, IBM or Sun to put it on there. The only good reason to do this would be to ease migration from low end solutions running on Linux. Or to appease the PHB's that demand a Linux based solution (just wait...It'll happen). Since they wouldn't abandon their current customers, they would be supporting two OSes in the same space with the same developers for quite some time. While the Linux solution would be open source, there would not be great advantages to this since the user community would be so small.
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Re:exchange? (Score:1)
But seriously, as I have mentioned in other posts, this is unconfirmed speculation about an unbuilt machine. FUD might be bad, but vaporware is worse. This appears to be slashdotware (a product invented by the journalist to attract hits).
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Cray and Chen (Score:2)
This was back in the days when the model for a fast machine was a big processor. And lo and behold, with the funding they had (read: NSA) they were able to produce a big Al clad box that DID run.
The OS they used for that project?
Linux.
What happened? Well, processors got faster and cheaper. So the need for a hi dollar mondo machine has fallen off. And today, the whole supercomputer industry is hurting.
So, a Cray/Chen/SGI/Linux connection. And I'm betting the 'linux champions' from Chen's venture are now back working for Cray/SGI. (and Intel picked up the other stragglers)
Something else to think about:
The OS is nothing more than a way to make the hardware useful. And, if the company can use the work of others, it lowers their development costs. Thus, it is now a race to the bottom (cost wise) with OpenSourced BSD and GNU/Linux being the lowest development costs and licencing fees.
SGI is fighting to exist, and OpenSource will help them do just that.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:2)
The result would be a single floating point number! Or maybe I'm just simplifying things...
Yet More Pipedreams (Score:4)
If this system is to be ready by 2001, and is to be faster than ASCI Red (9,282 Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz with 1024k cache each, using proprietary interconnects (IP over SCSI, IIRC)) then it's not going to happen.
Even if the gov't is willing to sacrifice the reliability of the system, Linux is not ready and will not be for many years. Period. You're talking of going from 2 processors, which only works on x86 and Alpha currently, to over a thousand.
Sorry, folks, it isn't going to happen. It's a matter of rapid development, and availability. Sure, SGI could probably do it, but not by due date. Nor would it perform as necessary due to the requirement of extensive assembly-level optimization in both compilers and kernels.
ASCI Blue Pacific, IBM's entry, is one of the most powerful computers in the world. And what I'm about to say will probably send most of you into denial and/or shock.
Blue Pacific isn't customized all that much. In fact, barely customized. It's nearly the same machine you can order for your business today. Perhaps even slightly slower.
That's right - ASCI Blue Pacific CTR SP Silver and ASCI Blue Pacific, #11 and #2 respectively on the Top 500 list, are retail systems with some additional software. IBM's SP Silver in Poughkeepsie is a retail SP.
Shocking, isn't it? That someone can build a supercomputer that any business can buy. IBM holds a *lot* of the first 50. You don't see Sun till 54 with a machine that was totally custom built. Hell, look at #20! IBM SP Power3 200MHz. *200MHz!* And it smokes 480 supercomputers! That should tell you something right there. Now, SGI's talking about, more than likely, an x86 supercomputer or IA64 supercomputer, that's supposed to run Linux, have more than a thousand processors, and outperform ASCI Red? Nope, 'fraid not, folks. Maybe in 5 or 6 years, but not one and a half. Sorry. Deal with it.
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
Re: (Score:1)
True, but only to the US government(/military). SGI is under NO obligation to release source or binary to ANYONE else.
Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:1)
Re:Is Big Blue going to stand for this? (Score:1)
And actually the saying _does_ go "No one ever got fired for buying IBM.
some clarifications (Score:2)
Blue Mountain has two parts, an open and a secure side. As far as I can tell (and this is not terribly surprising), only details on the open side are available from press releases, etc. Anyway, it's a big beefy SGI Origin2000 system, with lots and lots of boxes each holding lots and lots of processors. (Sorry about the vagueness here -- you can probably find details if you look hard enough.) We're talking thousands of processors here, in case that wasn't abundantly clear.
My slightly-biased opinion would be that, in light of the many millions of dollars which were undoubtedly spent on said machines, it is extremely unlikely that the cluster would be ditched anytime in the near future, even if we end up getting a faster cluster -- you can always use more computing power. :-)
For lots more info, check out this press release [lanl.gov], which gives some (now outdated) details on nirvana, the open part of blue mountain. Also, the ACL site at Los Alamos [lanl.gov] is pretty good, though a big PR-y. It also has details about the (currently extant) Linux cluster, in case you're interested. Finally, if you're curious about the real details of the Blue Mountain operating environment, you can take a look at this page [lanl.gov], which has lots of good info.
Have fun.
Kasporov (Score:1)
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ASCI Red upgraded! (Score:1)
Is that correct I wonder, last time I checked they were talking about.. 4500 nodes.., hmm are those dual?
Whatever, I'm sure Sandia will get some upgrade by 2001.. But I like the idea of fastest computer being a Beowulf cluster.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
Frankly enterprise ready is a meaningless buzzword, but I at least, tend to think of large single system image Big Iron database servers like the E10K. In that respect neither Linux nor Microsoft is enterprise ready.
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More than a rumor, actually (Score:1)
It's worth reading the article before posting!
Yes, actually (Score:1)
Please don't spread misinformation (Score:1)
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Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
I doubt that. Maybe in the days when all the results came straight out on the line printer... :-)
Re:Scheduled for 2001? (Score:2)
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Re:Is Big Blue going to stand for this? (Score:1)
Worth reading the original story before posting!
Hypothetically, if they were in the running, they might well say "Okay, our solution could run Linux if you want. Remember, no-one ever got fired for buying IBM!" Not those exact words, obviously.
Re:"Possibly" in business speak (Score:1)
They wouldn't say "That's possible" - a few years ago, Linux was regarded as a fringe OS. If nothing else it's a testament to how far Linux has come (but we knew that already! :-)
Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:1)
There are only three processor types that SGI would consider: MIPS, ia32, ia64
On MIPS, the OS would be Irix.
On ia32 it could be eithor Irix or Linux
On ia64 it would be Linux.
Since SGI is planning on a big move twards ia64/Linux... it's not all that unlikely that they're going to want to use that for the supercomputer.
Please show me where they confirm the possibility (Score:2)
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Re:Patches (Score:1)
DOE, not DOD (Score:1)
correct answers to questions (Score:4)
SGI has more than one line of supercomputers. ASCI Blue Mountain is an SGI Origin2000 machine. I don't think we can expect to see Linux on Crays in the near future. (And didn't SGI just divest Cray again?)
It's true that Linux hasn't currently "mastered" 16-CPU SMPs. If Larry McVoy is to be believed, that's probably a good thing for the correctness and stability of the kernel.
CPlant is number 129 on the TOP500 list; it's the fastest Linux machine currently listed that runs Linux. It used to be below 100, but more new machines were added.
The 1000-node genetic-programming cluster mentioned recently on Slashdot, and distributed.net, are not on the list at all; to get on the TOP500 list, you need to run LINPACK fast. This (a) does not interest some people, and (b) is not well-suited to the structure of some clusters. A parallel machine that is very fast for some tasks may be very poor at others.
With regard to DES cracking: the EFF's DES cracker, which cost less than a quarter of a million dollars to build, cracks DES keys in a matter of days. Such a machine can scale linearly. The fact that distributed.net takes a month to crack a single DES key does not demonstrate that the NSA requires months to do the same.
Generally, "secure" DoD sites are not connected to the Internet, auditing or no.
"supercomputer" and "enterprise server" are very different categories. "enterprise server" means "mainframe killer" -- that is, reasonable CPU speed, fast I/O, but above all, reliability. Linux is definitely fit for supercomputing, and is being used for supercomputing all over the world. Linux is probably not quite yet fit for being an "enterprise server".
However, many supercomputers do indeed need lots of disk storage.
With regard to http://www.gapcon.org/listg.html [gapcon.org]: someone said, "You will notice there are no Linux installations in that list." Actually, they list a bunch of machines from Atipa Linux Solutions at LANL, the Avalon Beowulf at LANL, the Parnass2 Beowulf at the University of Bonn, the LoBoS Beowulf at the National Institutes of Health, the Centurion Beowulf at the University of Virginia, and possibly some others. They're a minority, but they're way cheap, and they're growing fast.
With regard to the GPL: if I hack something proprietary into Linux, I need to give source, licensed under the GPL, only to people whom I give binaries to. I am under no obligation to give source to anyone else. However, the person to whom I give it can put it up on their FTP site if they want.
Kragen Sitaker, current Beowulf FAQ maintainer
Conspiracy theories (Score:2)
As far as I know, no one in the private sector has built such a beast for cracking RC5, but it could certainly be done.
The NSA would typically use a supercomputer only for the last step in certain factoring algorithms for breaking RSA or other such problems that require a single system image and huge amounts of memory. This was the technique used by a group of researchers that cracked [slashdot.org] a 512 bit RSA key. The first phase was distributed, but the last step required a single supercomputer.
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Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:1)
There's not enough information to try and figure out what the reporter heard. i.e. we don't know what was fact and what is conjecture. SGI has said that Linux is going to play a large roll in the future. SGI is going to make Linux scale beyond simple bus based 2 or 4 processor systems. Linux will be running on CC-NUMA machines.
Conjecture 1: A T3 class machine is being bid. The reporter remembered that SGI made a commitment to Linux and mixed and matched.
Conjecture 2: A CC-NUMA machine is being bid, "T30" doesn't mean anything. The machine will be running IA-64. Linux will be the operating system.
Since I don't even have a press release in my work mailbox I can't guess as to the real scenario. I'll ask for some information next week.
Re: (Score:1)
Conjecture 3: Hybrid system based on vector processors such as the SV1 and CC-NUMA like the O2000.
Where (Score:1)
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Re:ASCI Red upgraded! (Score:2)
ASCII Red is at Livermore Labs, right? To bad, I'm told, it hasn't been to useful for NIF...
FUD (Score:1)
BTW, did you hear that IBM is standardizing all their desktops on Windows2000? If Linux is soooo much better why is that?
The real answer is that what is best for me is what is best for me. That could be Linux, Windows, or Xenix. Frankly the actions of IBM or SGI are not extremely important in this choice unless they demonstrate that my particular application is going to run better (according to my criteria) than another.
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Re: (Score:1)
Correction - Microsoft has announced that Windows 2000 "DataCenter" will support 32 CPUs, and journalists are speculating that this product will ship Q2 or Q3 2000. (Of course, they were speculating that Win2000 would ship last month.)
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The second fastest... (Score:4)
The current fastest, ASCI Red, is located in Sandia National Labs. Both these systems were built by Intel I believe, and are gigantic clusters running some custom software.
The biggest Linux box/cluster/whatever is Avalon I believe, currently ranked #160, and also resides in LANL. Wasn't there one in the 50-60 range as well?
Personally I can't see this being anything but a good thing for Linux, both in terms of another selling point (Hey, it's good enough to be on the world's fastest computer!) as well as (hopefully) advancements in scalability (I can't imagine SGI implementing a massive cluster of single CPU boxen, meaning they may take a long hard look at SMP code and optomize it for whatever platform they're considering rolling out for this).
And, it has to be said:
Imagine a Beowulf of these things! Heh...
When is the Quake Port? (Score:1)
Re:When is the Quake Port? (Score:2)
Also, I fail to see how incredible CPU power would be used to enhance pr0n-downloading speeds. That's generally a bandwidth issue, not a CPU issue.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
Journaling file systems, multithreaded networking,
-Chris
typo in the article (Score:3)
No, I'm sorry folks. That line is to be read:
to be installed in Nate Fox's garage (NFg) in suburban Los Angeles.
You'd think a major publication like C|Net would get thier facts straight ;)
...Nothing is so smiple it cant get screwed up.
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If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...
Reliability (Score:1)
Re:Sorry (Score:1)
Anyway, I apologise for the dodgy moderating. If this post even manages to get through. Hmm.
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Re:Scheduled for 2001? (Score:1)
SMP is very much on the forfront of kernel development.
I honestly expect Linux to out perform NUMA within the year 2001.
This just makes me smile! (Score:1)
Linux running the "Worlds Fastest Super Computer".
It seems to me that if it is good enough for the scientists at Los Alamos then ANY THING that Microsoft says about Linux will seem like FUD.
Even if some of what they say it is true.
Cray used to be well established as the super computer company. I remember no MS FUD about Cray. I wonder what they will say about this.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
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Re:Scheduled for 2001? (Score:1)
1) Make SMP good enough for the platform they're making the cluster out of, or
2) They're going to use 2 or maybe 4 CPU boxen (unlikely).
Remember, SGI owns Cray. SGI by itself is a powerhouse when it comes to multiprocessing, and they have the Cray guys, who have got to be better (UniCos has to be able to support upwards of 1024 processors (see the T3Es on top500.org, 3rd fastest computer in the world has over 1k CPUs))
I hope they decide to release the source to their patches (I don't think they have to, though, since they're modifying for internal use... But maybe they do, since they're then selling it. It can't really hurt them to release the source, so I don't doubt they will).
Re:When is the Quake Port? (Score:1)
Well, after the whole Chinese spying fiasco, I imagine it IS much harder to copy files from their machines onto your laptop or vice versa. However, I know people who work there and they do in fact have access to the net, just not with "secure" machines, which I'm sure the big machines are.
The only catch is, all the pr0n you download also gets reviewed by the IT sercurity people. D'oh!
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Re:Sorry (Score:1)
This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:5)
Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. But let's be realistic here. That article contained little to no factual data. The only thing they're running on is conjecture -- SGI has expressed interest in Linux in the past, so they're assuming this hundred-million-dollar multi-teraflop machine will run it? I'll believe it when I see it.
I'll bet you, unless SGI come up with some sort of Beowulf solution instead of their time-tested Cray supercomputers, we'll be seeing yet another Unicos machine at the top of the "World's Fastest Supercomputers" list in a few years.
- A.P.
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"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:The second fastest... (Score:1)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
ASCII Blue is NOT Intel (Score:1)
Depends what you mean by computer... (Score:3)
However, the proposed machine is bound to be a cluster, not a single machine. Linux will do this just fine. In fact Linux would run on ASCI Red if there were drivers for the networking hardware. (They've booted individual nodes with both Linux and NT).
So there is a possibility of Linux. I guess it might be easier to use Linux on IA64 than port IRIX/Unicos.
My reservation here is that neither the Itanic nor MIPS chips offer cutting edge performance.
Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:1)
But my take is that it would consist of a large cluster of large (8-32 CPU) SMP (this is the direction SGI is heading, I mean expanding IA64 SMP environments) IA64 nodes.
BTW, there are some non-public (not announced in the top500) installations of Linux clusters which are well above Avalon's #160 ranking.
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Re:no way (Score:1)
Think super-scalable, super-reliable clusters.
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The meaning of fastest (Score:4)
Second, the meaning of fastest is very unclear. I'd go so far to say that any system that implements a given function in software instead of hardware is going to be orders of magnitude slower than the state of the art. Witness the EFF DES cracking machine, 3D Graphics Accelerators, even Math Coprocessors. Fitting a square peg into a round hole is actually a pretty common occurance in the computer world, but it takes a relatively tortoise-like rate compared to what can be pulled off with raw gates.
That's why XISC--Extensible Instruction Set Computing--is probably the upcoming processor paradigm. Programmers need the ability to redefine round holes into square ones, so the square pegs fit right in.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:The second fastest... (Score:2)
Money (Score:1)
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Several Clarifications (Score:2)
First off, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Cray division (which several people, including Hemos seem to think). This project, and the current ASCI Blue Mountain project, are both built from SGI's Origin line of servers (the SN1 is the next generation of this). Cray's unit only works with the Vector supercomputers. Also remember (from August) that SGI is going to be getting rid of this division.
Second, I'd like to point out that this article is really just speculation. Read it closely, they take a couple of facts - SGI is trying to get this contract, they are working on ramping up the scalability of Linux, and the new SN1 servers will be eventually based on the Itanium - and they try to draw a conclusion that Linux might be what is run on this supercomputer.
Now, I'm not saying that this isn't a valid argument - but Linux as an operating system has a LONG way to go before it supports the massive number of processors and amount of memory we're talking about here (Blue Mountain has 6144 processors). There is still a lot that Linux is missing.
This does not necessarily mean that SGI can't get it that far, especially with its experience in scalable OSes. I would love to see them do it. But when you already have an architecture and OS that works running on the Blue Mountain configuration, it would be going quite a bit out of their way. So, until I hear SGI themselves say "we're running Linux on T30", I'm going to be skeptical.
If they DID - hey, that'd be a GREAT push for Linux. Lets hope they go for it.
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
SGI will likely be able to bring redundant processors and subsystems online (hotswapable) as needed. Software becomes stable over time on these types of systems. The key is that SGI support will have access to all source whenever they need it.
So who else is in the game? ... (Score:2)
I'm one of the SysAdmins for the Centurion cluster at UVa, as well as a student in Andrew Grimshaw 's (professor who built Centurion) Operating Systems class. First of all, I'll play the part of Greg Lindahl briefly and say that Centurion is technically not a Beowulf cluster. AFAIK, part of what defines a Beowulf-class machine is one or more head nodes -- usually one -- which dispatch jobs to multiple client nodes. This is somewhat like Asymmetric Multiprocessing, in which there is a master processor which runs the OS and dispatches jobs to the slave processors. The head node(s) has more processing power, memory, etc, in order to be able to manage the other nodes. The nodes in the cluster itself are usually of homogenous composition running some freenix, usually Linux. Centurion itself consists of 128 DEC 21164 Alphas and 128 dual PII-400's, all running Linux. There are a few of us just itching to try and run LINPACK on it. :) There are also several assorted machines which serve as frontents, running anything from FreeBSD to Solaris to (ick) IRIX. There is no head node which dispatches jobs, and each node is independent of the other (no sub-clusters within the cluster). I know I'm currently stepping on a lot of toes and re-hashing a lot of info, so visit the Beowulf FAQ. Kragen's done a great job of gathering info, and it's a good read.
Secondly, Professor Grimshaw discussed the PetaFLOP project the other day, in which the LANL project is a stepping stone in. If you shell out enough money, you can have a GigaFLOP machine on your desk. If you shell out even more money, you can have a TeraFLOP machine in the raised-floor room with tons of A/C at your research center. The challenge now is to bump it up another 3 orders of magnitude. By combining SMP nodes with a message passing interface or some other form of managing distributed memory, LANL hopes to build this 30 TF machine.
However, SGI may not get the bid as C|NET reports. When the gov't spec'ed out the machines they want to have as nodes they requested 16-node processors. So let's look at the Big Boys of horsepower:
Which leaves
Just my 2 drachmas
-OWJones
DoH (Score:1)
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Re:Yet More Pipedreams (Score:1)
ASCI Red - about 10,000 PPro 200's. Okay. #1.
Linux works on more than 'two' processors on x86 and Alpha, and I'm sure a lot of redesigning (that you're not going to hear about until IA/64 comes out) is going on right now under NDA. I hope SGI is currently working with them on that, but either way that should be resolved. Of course, we can only hope that by 2001, IA/64 is the greatest invention since sliced bread, otherwise we'll be looking to x86, Alpha, PPC, and anyone else who thinks they have a "good idea for a chip".
However, it's the nature of clustering that I don't think they'll have thousands of processors all in the same box. And Linux is a proven clustering solution, as evinced by it's entries in the TOP500. It's just a little newer and a lot cheaper than IBM.
Also, Linux clustering solutions generally use Commodity Off-The-Shelf Hardware. That's the point: it's cheaper that way. So don't brag about how IBM uses a standard, proven design. So does everybody else. (I admit, though, IBM is somewhat high up in the rankings, just like SGI.
#2 on the list, ASCI Blue *Mountain* looks like it's held by SGI.
Ooo, #20 has 200 MHz processors. So does #1! The MHz don't matter! The fact that #20 has 768 processors total might be a *little* bit more important.
And this is an other reason why this makes sense. Anything that outperforms ASCI Red would need more than 1000 processors, since it's 10,000 PPro 200's. Just on processor power and MHz alone, you'd want, say, 2,000 1GHz processors. However, if IA/64 offers the sort of speedup expected by a completely new architecture including weird optimizing compilers, and processor speeds continue to increase as usual, maybe they can do it with 1,000 1.4GHz processors or something.
Also, from the article, it didn't sound like they needed to beat ASCI Red right off, just eventually. They admitted that the technology needs time to mature. And that isn't just Linux. It's IA/64 development, and SGI's x86 porting efforts too.
I'm willing to wait two years to see what happens. Everything you claim happening in two years would be somewhat unlikely. However, I don't think the article required that, and I wouldn't blame it all on Linux. Besides, the OS on the nodes will probably be pretty customized and stripped-down anyhow. They're just supposed to be computational workhorses.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Re: (Score:1)
treke
Re:Not quite (Score:1)
Is Big Blue going to stand for this? (Score:1)
What was that Bill? SCALABILITY? (Score:1)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Re:This is a BAD RUMOR at best. (Score:2)
Also, LANL has a large Beowulf cluster (See Avalon, an Alpha based cluster, #160 in the top500), and a small Beowulf cluster (See Loki, a PPro based cluster which has won some awards for advancements in parallel computing or something). They also have #2, which I think is an Intel (Maybe it's SGI... I forget) designed cluster of boxen. They seem to lean towards commodity hardware and clustering over the "One massive box" method that a Cray machine would bring.
Does this mean... (Score:2)
30 Teraflops sounds nice and crunchy.
Linux: It's what's for dinner.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
supercomputer can have very different requirements - often directly related to the precise task it is made for and the architectural decisions taken when designing/building the supercomputer.
An example: You mention journaled filesystems. A supercomputer doesn't neccesarily need large capacity storage or quick failure recovery. It may just need a small fast storage instead, or maybe none at all.
Many supercomputers today are built using Linux.
"Possibly" in business speak (Score:1)
"yes, ofcourse we'll do it" - ummm, maybe, depends on lots of factors.
"it's possible" - but we won't do it, we might say it for publicity though.
"we can't do that! it's impossible" - not applicable, that sentence does not exist in business language.
that really puts 'confirmed the possibility' in another light, doesn't it? but ask SGI if it's possible that it will run irix or unicos, or windows, and they'll confirm it's "possible" aswell
Re:The second fastest... (Score:1)
Re:When is the Quake Port? (Score:1)
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I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2)
In related news, Microsoft has confirmed that it is "possible" that WindowsCE will be used for critical life support systems in upcoming space missions. I mean come on. Neither is strictly speaking impossible, but I'd take it with a large grain of NaCl.
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Re:What was that Bill? SCALABILITY? (Score:3)
Mainframes aren't that much more powerful than desktops in processing power, but they are much more powerful in terms of I/O bandwidth and storage capacity.
The scalability issue that most people are talking about is scalability on an enterprise network in number of users and diversity of missions. The scalability challenge in those dimensions is manageability. The MS argument about scalability is basically that an enterprise can manage its IT assets more cheaply on NT (and manifestly looks easier to a PHB because you use the familiar windows GUI).
However, I think most people have figured out by now that the "user friendliness" of Windows is basically a cardboard facade put up on a big honking hunk of complexity. I think Linux (as well as other Unices) has the opposite problem in that a lot of its utilities appear unneccesarily complicated, but the underlying system is much cleaner and more modular. It would be cool if every package adopted the same scheme for its configuration files, perhaps XML based:
< netdef >
< netname > sales-dept-subnet <
< ipnetdef >
< ipnetaddr > 192.168.0.64 <
< ipnetbits > 26 <
<
These could be manipulated with any combination of GUI tools, Web tools, command line tools, or even special YACC grammars purpose built to your enterprise network.
Re:Supercomputer != Big Iron (Score:1)
In this respect, i think open source is a big hit - a developer of supercomputers gets some source code to build on and can change anything needed to increase the speed. If (s)he was to buy IRIX or similar, none of that would be easily available.
What if they do try? (Score:2)
This list of the top supercomputer sites is as close as you can get to up-to-date and authoritative in that field.
You will notice that there are no Linux installations in that list. Linux on a supercomputer has not been proven to be viable for the highest end systems yet. What happens if SGI fails to deliver? The box may be installed, it may boot, but what happens to Linux's reputation if the system can't fulfill it's mission.
Also, keep in mind that SGI does need some good press. You could say that they are desperate for good press right now.
if your figures are correct... (Score:1)
If distributed.net, as you say, is 100 times faster than the world's fastest and it's still taking this zarking long to crack 64-bit DES
PGP should be safe for a while more.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
CPLANT (Score:1)
The biggest Linux box/cluster/whatever is Avalon I believe, currently ranked #160, and also resides in LANL. Wasn't there one in the 50-60 range as well?
CPLANT. A US based lab made at least one 150 node Alpha Linux cluster, I forget what was different (better) that made it much faster, but it cracked higher into the top 100 than Avalon ever did. Last I checked it was at about 120.
Clarification (Score:1)
Or I could be wrong again, in which case chalk one up to a late night.
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PHB's (Score:1)
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Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
Seriously though, why is this "enterprise" myth so popular? Linux seems to work fine for those enterprises as well as the UK government.
Re:SGI better get their act in gear (Score:1)
So this is how rumors get started (Score:3)
CNET: What OS will you be using?
SGI: No comment.
CNET: (aha!) So what CPU will you be using?
SGI: No comment.
CNET: (Aha!) Can you confirm that you will be using Linux.
SGI: No comment.
CNET: AHA!!!!! (Whoops did I say that out loud?)
Later...
CNET: (Damn, I forgot to ask about alien technology, I guess I'll just go with the Linux angle. I'll throw some "experts" in there for "balance". Slashdot readers will read it....I'll be rich) Rich I tell you!! haHaHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! (cough)
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