Portable 8-iMac Linux Cluster Real World Debut

Snocone writes: "Here is the first real world application (researching drug effects on the brain, ironically enough) of Terra Soft's 8-way Black Lab Linux cluster. Even if they didn't deserve mad props for standing up proudly against the Lintel hegemony, there's just something fundamentally hilarious about selling an $18K supercomputer made out of iMacs." So - eight Imacs. You could get the different colors, and call it a Lifesavers Candy Cluster?

Comments

Re:Is this right?

[JatTDB]

For the last time...there is nothing in the GPL which requires a GPL'd product to be free. It just requires that you make the source available to people who purchase the product, and that you allow them to do whatever they want with such source. If you're so damn concerned about it, cough up the $389 and make "Tangent Z's clustering linux-o-rama" and put it up on a public ftp site or something.

Wouldn't the G4 be a better option?

[JanKotz]

Those new cubes are proof enough that you can cram lots of PowerPC hardware into a really tiny space (without lots of fans, either). Furthermore, Altivec should make the G4 absolutely CRUSH any G3 in mathematical computation, even the ones with a meg of cache.

Of course, if I was building a cluster of anyhing, I'd want to use Athlon or Alpha -- EV6 r0x0rz...
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Re:Wouldn't the G4 be a better option?

[dburcaw]

Depends. For people looking to deploy a small, very cheap cluster using PowerPC.. iMacs are the way to go. If you want the higher performance and are willing to spend more G4 is the way to. G4s aren't *that* much more expensive, either.

Regards,
Dan Burcaw
dburcaw@terrasoftsolutions.com
Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.

And I thought the G4 was the supercomputer!

[intmainvoid]

If apple needed to guard the G4 with tanks, then this thing must explain why the star wars missile system is being revamped - to protect it!

Logic Boards

[clifyt]

It looks like they are only using the logic boards in these things not the whole damn system, so yer not going to see different gummy colors. Yeah, I know that was probably a flip remark, but it seems as though most /. editors don't bother reading these links anymore either.

Has anyone looked inside the iMacs? Not much there except the monitor. You could probably fit 4 of the logic boards into the space of one G4 server.

blah

clif

Re:Cute, but is it newsworthy?

[dburcaw]

Well, this particular cluster is using 100mb ethernet. The reason is that the iMac isn't exactly easy to upgrade with something like gigabit or myrinet. We do work on G4 clusters that use gigabit or myrinet for a very high performance and low latency interconnect fabric.

Regards,
Dan Burcaw
dburcaw@terraplex.com
Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.

Missing Logic?

[frantzdb]

Is it just me or is an iMac not the most logical computer to cluster. What a waist of 7 monitors, 7 CD drives, 7 flopp... ok no floppies but still.

I am not too familiar with Beowulf Clusters, but;

[Nanookanano]

If you hook 8 Macs into a token ring, would you consider that a Fruit Loop?

Power PC built in Clustering Capability with G4

[Anonymous Coward]

If these guys had just waited until the iMac's come out with G4's, they're job would have been much easier. The G4 contains six new registers separated by semaphores that control locking of memory locations across a network (IP v6 compatible). These aren't available under the Mac OS 9, because it doesn't use the memory protection available from a UNIX-like OS. Mac OS X will support this, hwoever, along with a new release of WebObjects, positioning Apple as a leading e-commerce platform provider with Sun and IBM. Apparently, many users of the Mac OS have been pestering Motorola to add this into hardware. I predict it is unlikely to be in Linux in the next few months. With the current lack of multi-pipeline support in the kernel, it will take several man-months of effort to work this properly. Several architectures have been proposed, I favor a regimented memory access (RMA) style.

"Think Different"...

[pb]

"The new iMac cluster is infinitely expandable..."

"Because there's always room for JELL-O!"

Where's Bill Cosby when you need him?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

G4's are mean scientific machines

[Raleel]

Well, from the experiences I ahve had recently, g4's are mean mean mean scientific machines. We have quite a few floating around the national lab where I work. The PC/MAC team is going head to head with the Unix team on Seti@Home. I was holding the top spot with my dual p3's chewing up chunks. Then in comes these G4's..they are averaging about 5 hours per processor on a block. That's really quite good. Of course, we countered with the PA-RISC machine that could do 24 an hour ;) But the fact of the matter is that their performance is prompting us to look at g4 clusters as a scientific computing solution. Go figure. I wonder if Apple will buy into it..their machines as scientific boxes ;)