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Linux And Los Lobos Supercomputer

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the but-the-real-question-is-how-many-bogomips? dept.

DocRea writes: "Using Linux, IBM and the University of New Mexico will connect 256 two-processor IBM Intel-based servers with high-speed Myrinet cards to create a 512-processor machine capable of 375 billion calculations per second. The computer, called Los Lobos, will primarily be used for scientific purposes, but will be adapted by IBM to provide the "cluster" approach to running software for business tasks and e- commerce. "

6 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Los Lobos? by Otto · · Score: 3

    Why name a supercomputer after a second rate band? I mean, yes, the soundtrack to La Bamba and Desperado, but everything else they've ever done sucks.

    As long as the computer plays that cool guitar intro from Desperado when it boots, I guess it's okay. :-)

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    --
    - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  2. Re:Wouldn't it be great... by Noryungi · · Score: 3

    It's been done. Check this link.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  3. Re:Wouldn't it be great... by Hardwyred · · Score: 3

    actually.. this is very much a reality. check out The Stone Soup Cluster . It uses all kinds of machines from 486's to Pentiums all in one cluster.


    ...and the geek shall inherit the earth...

    --
    www.linux-skunkworks.com
  4. Re:Wouldn't it be great... by thelaw · · Score: 3

    there already is such a thing, although it's not as closely integrated as a beowolf. it's a process-migration kernel enhancement that allows several machines (whether workstations or clusters) to share cpu loads.

    check it out at mosix.org. it is especially useful for compiling large projects (i.e. xfree86).

    jon

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    -- http://www.cerastes.org
  5. One more time... by Tower · · Score: 4

    The athlon is SMP capable, there's just not a cheap commerical memory controller that implements it yet. It's the same bus, same SMP structure as the Alphas, and they have done it, but AMD isn't producing chipsets (you'll have to ask VIA).

    --
    "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  6. Re:Where's AMD? by Hankd · · Score: 5

    We have been building AMD PC clusters for several years now, ever since the K6-2. The Athlons are especially impressive. Our latest cluster, KLAT2 (Kentucky Linux Athlon Testbed 2), should have its 66 Athlons chugging away by April. We demo'd our
    first Athlon cluster at SC99 in November 1999.

    Although we have used SMPs as well (e.g., PIII
    quads from Dell), modern processors are memory
    bandwidth starved, and simple SMPs magnify the
    problem. I think a lot of cluster designs try to use SMP nodes to compensate for overspending on the inter-node network. I prefer to do the network carefully and use uniprocessor nodes.

    PS: I'm the author of the Parallel processing HOWTO and my first Linux PC cluster predates
    Beowulf (it was in Feb. 1994)... being good
    and even being first doesn't necessarily give
    you the highest visibility. Remember that when
    you think of AMD's Athlon. ;-)

    PPS: I used to be faculty at Purdue, but have
    recently moved to the University of Kentucky.
    Our new web site is http://aggregate.org/