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Super Computing 2000

Posted by michael on from the big-iron dept.

Stephen Adler of Brookhaven Laboratory has written a fine account of the Super Computing 2000 conference in Dallas, Texas. He covers super computing, venture capital, some fascinating info about SETI, open source software, and even has some geek porn.

8 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Supercomputing Isn't Dead by LHOOQtius_ov_Borg · · Score: 4

    It's just mutating...

    Though there is still a place in the world, in my mind, for mid-to-large SIMD systems (SGI/Crays, Starfires, RS/6000s, etc.), this conference and other events are showing that cluster supercomputing and widely distributed computing (a'la SETI@Home, Distributed.Net, WebWorld, etc.) are also being taken seriously.

    What drives any advances in hardware is applications that can take advantage of them. Supercomputing is not dead because on top of the usual uses (fluid dynamics modeling, codebreaking, etc.), the Internet and new algorithms in IR and AI are combining to compel people to want to approach Information Retrieval and understanding problems which are at the level of requiring supercomputing resources.

    The company I work for (www.webmind.com) is building a hybrid AI system for IR and understanding (among other things) which is optimized to run not on a vector supercomputer but on a cluster of independent servers (though a nice MIMD supercomputer would be nice). With commodity hardware we have managed to get over 100GB of RAM and 200GHz of CPU for less than $500,000 for our first prototype of a large installation. A 6-64way IBM RS/6000 starts at $420,000.

    Missing from the write-up (and possibly from the conference) are the folks at Starbridge Systems who are working on a "Hypercomputer" which has a field-reprogrammable topology. If any supercomputer company that needs it deserves venture capital funding, it's this one. The idea of allowing an application to change the network topology of the processors to optimize for its own data representation is extremely powerful - it's the next "big thing" in both MIMD supercomputing and networks for cluster supercomputing, IMNSHO.

    SETI@Home is a very cool project, but it would be nice to have more about applications driving supercomputing at such conferences. Distributed.Net seems to get too little time since their client isn't as pretty as SETI, and also cluster supercomputing not over the Internet is being used for all sorts of cool stuff, and it would be especially interesting to hear more results about commodity clusters vs. proprietary large systems in areas like fluid dynamics modeling where the proprietary systems usually rule.

    Also, more of a focus on evolutionary computing, FPGAs in supercomputer design, and information retrieval and understanding applications would be nice.

    But overall, a good writeup of what looks like it was a pretty interesting and refreshingly diverse (not just "big iron" focused) SC conference...

    --
    o/~ we are pissed, we are pissed, we have to resist... o/~ - ec8or
  2. Re:The vector pr0n was missing ! by Oestergaard · · Score: 3

    Why do you think Fujitsu puts 16 GigaBytes of memory INSIDE the processor module ??

    Top vector machines in the world: (from www.top500.org again)

    9) Hitachi - 917GFlops/sec - In Japan
    12) Fujitsu - 886GFlops/sec - In the UK
    13) Hitachi - 873GFlops/sec - In Japan
    18) Hitachi - 691.3GFlops/sec - In Japan
    24) Hitachi - 577GFlops/sec - In Japan
    33) Fujitsu - 492GFlops/sec - In Japan
    35) Fujitsu - 482GFlops/sec - In Japan
    37) Hitachi - 449GFlops/sec - In Japan
    59) Fujitsu - 319GFlops/sec - In Japan
    63) Fujitsu - 296.1GFlops/sec - In Japan
    65) Fujitsu - 286GFlops/sec - In France
    67) NEC - 280GFlops/sec - In France
    76) NEC - 244GFlops/sec - In Japan
    77) NEC - 243GFlops/sec - In Australia
    78) NEC - 243GFlops/sec - In Canada
    79) NEC - 243GFlops/sec - In Japan
    ...
    I found lots of crays, but all T3E, meaning Alpha based. In the first 100 entries, I could not find one single vector machine located in the US.

    Please point me to it if you can find it.

  3. The vector pr0n was missing ! by Oestergaard · · Score: 3

    Hey, there were no images of the naked vector CPUs presented by Fujitsu, or the tweaked power-cpus from NEC or Hitachi...

    One CPU:
    256 registers
    each register holds 64 double precision floats
    330MHz
    32 FLOPS per clock-cycle

    One CPU will yield 9.something GFLOPS. It has 16GB memory in the processor module. And they sell MP machines from a few GFLOPS to 4TFLOPS. Both Fujitsu and Hitachi had processor modules stripped down - they were *sweet*! :)

    So, the 760 chipset has a 200MHz FSB ? Well, Hitachi has 40 TeraBytes/second memory bandwidth in the local machines, and some ~8GigaBytes/second between machines.

    Friends, vector computing is not dead - unfortunately only Japan produces vector machines, so only asia and europe can use them. US national laboratories are not allowed to buy them, not because of export regulations, but because of import regulations... Go figure.

    1. Re:The vector pr0n was missing ! by Boone^ · · Score: 3
      Yes, the Hitachi box is damn fast. I'm not going to begin to argue that. I will argue the fact that I don't see any Athlons on the Top500 either. Hasn't anyone put 900 athlons together on a network yet? Disappointing.

      To Cray's defense, however, I'm going to have to argue a couple of points. First off, the fact that the SV1 is the "budget" vector box follow-on to the J90, while the SV2 (2002) is the follow-on to the T90 and the T3E has to say something. J90's architecture was defined in 1994. It's a bit long in the tooth. SV1 might not achieve the absolute performance, but the GFLOPS/$$ aren't too shabby these days. Secondly, SGI's assimilation of CRI in the mid 90's didn't bode well for their Vector roadmap. SGI was more interested in stripping the MPP parts (You would too if everyone kept buying T3{D/E}s instead of Origin 2000s) from Cray and casting the rest off. Now that they've been cast off, I'm hoping everything gets righted again.

      You've got to understand that Cray's not in the business of kluging together 4000 4-Way SMP Linux boxes with 100BaseT and some duct tape. That cluster model blows away the first 6 Top500 "supercomputers". #7 is the first 'honest' supercomputer in that it was designed for that performance, not just a cluster of similar high-theoretical peak boxes connected by bottlenecks. Cray @ #10 is the next one. Ironically, the T3E1200 in #10 was also originally released to the public in 1994. That's a while ago. For historical record, that's pre-SGI. Let's see what happens post-SGI with the totally redesigned SV2, as well.

  4. Geek Porn by NecroPuppy · · Score: 3

    Look at the racks on that baby going to Duke!

    Sorry... Couldn't help it... :)

    --
    I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
  5. Open Source Panel by OWJones · · Score: 4

    Let me preface this by saying that I like Linux, I run it on all my desktop machines, and have admin'ed a cluster of 300 Linux boxen and loved it. However ...

    I was not actually at SC this year, but have attended the two previous ones and have actually had a chance to speak with Todd Needham and other people from MS Research. The legal and marketing department there may be full of idiots, but never think that if someone is an MS employee they're automatically and idiot; they may have misplaced loyalties, but they are not stupid. I have to admit that Todd Needham from MS had one or two good points in the panel discussion. Open Source is not the magic "pixie dust" that automatically fixes everything (*snicker* Todd quoted jwz). As someone who's worked in a business environment, I can say with confidence that some level of heirarchical organization is necessary. The Cathedral/Bazaar analogy may be good, but it is not a black-or-white issue; projects can fall somewhere in-between, and those that strike the right balance will be successful.

    With respect to security, many eyes may make all bugs shallow, provided some of those eyes are willing to partake in a formal security analysis. A compiler researcher as OSDI this year revealed that in the Linux kernel there are ~80 places where interrupts are disabled and never reenabled. How did he discover this? By modifying a compiler to be a little "smarter" and read a formal specification tailored to the application you're compiling, thus performing more rigorous static anaylsis on your code. It's pretty interesting reading. Many eyes are not a substitute for formal analysis, but something to augment it; conversely, formal analysis of software is still a young field, and many eyes are still a necessity for improving robustness in large projects.

    The bottom line: seek the middle ground. Just because "their" ways doesn't work doesn't mean everything was wrong with it. And yes, I'm ready to be moderated down as "flamebait". :)

    -jdm

  6. Re:Isn't supercomputing dead yet? by SilverSun · · Score: 5

    Half of it is dead.
    Supercomputer applications can be ordered by the inherent parallelism of the underlying problem. Some problems are inherent parallel (e.g. SETI, HEP, etc.) some require communication (Weather, NP, etc.). Wherever communication is needed old fasioned "supercomputers" e.g. shared mem SIMD, MIMD, ccNUMA etc. mashines will be superior to clusters, i.e. distributed mem MIMD mashines.

    --

    KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing

  7. /. to the next level! by Mad+Hughagi · · Score: 3
    I don't know how many of you spend your free time in chat rooms, but 3 or 4 years from now, you'll need 3D glasses, and one of these electronic gloves so that you can pick up objects or punch out your opponent.

    I can just see it now, sadist troll cults that enjoy taking brutal beatings, bitter kung-fu flame wars and noble /. vigilante enforcers!

    Imagine being a newbie in that type of system? "Why is everyone punching me?"

    --
    UBU