New 8-Node PPC Cluster From Terra Soft

Ben Mesander writes: "Check out the cool looking iDitarod' parallel PPC Linux machine the folks at Terra Soft Solutions just shipped." This yellow rack actually packs a lot of power into a relatively small, mobile enclosure You don't even have to build a beowulf cluster out of this, but it's for deeper pockets than I've got -- as they suggest, though, it sounds like an easy way for a company or school to get a sweet little turnkey PPC cluster.

Comments

Disks Undesirable; Appropriate Applications

[Anonymous Coward]

Diskless nodes are much better from the point of view of maintenance and upgrading software on the system. Do it once, on one node (the "master" node with the disk), and all nodes are updated.

Caveat: Using the network for temporary storage hurts performance and doesn't scale if you have a lot of temporary data.

High Performance Computing Hardware

If your parallel process has a lot of communication, you would be using Myrinet, and/or getting a CSPI cluster running Linux, because ethernet is too slow. (You would avoid Mercury and RACEway because they are avoiding Linux.)

Appropriate Parallel Applications:

In short, this system would be good for embarassingly parallel tasks like a brute force search through key space for breaking encryption, or encoding mp3s. In such tasks, each processor only has to communicate at the beginning and ending of the task, and no processor has to communicate with any other processor during the task.

Inappropriate Parallel Applications

This system would not be so good for STAP in RADAR or SONAR.

Kenneth J. Hendrickson

re-boxed iMacs??

[Pr0Hak]

It looks to me like these are nothing but iMacs re-packeged into Marathon Computer's iRack.

Check out the picture on the terrasoft page, and then look at the marathon page. They look almost identical!!

That would explain the RAM limitations, and the lack of SCSI.

Kind of dissapointing that they are just repackaging Apple hardware!!

Economy Version?

[Accumulator]

If you've could have got that as a 4-node cluster, and omitting the switch (I already have some 3coms), I'd maybe actually scrape enough money to buy one 8-)

... or maybe I should actually buy some christmas gifts this year...

Wow that looks like API Networks new 1U server

[ppetrakis]

but API's is much faster :-).
http://www.api-networks.com/products/cs20.shtml

Would you like a dual 833MHz ev68 Alpha with each having a 4MB DDR cache? I would.
The best part is these PPC cluster slices cost about the same as a CS20 (like a UP2000) but the CS20 (otherwise known as 'shark')is a dual processor system!!!!

Also the CS20's boot linux from the flash rom and have neat little network enhancments that makes deploying them easy as turning them on.

How's that for bang per buck?

Peter
--
www.alphalinux.org

Hey...

[1337d00d]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these...

Sorry, couldn't resist that. :)

Woohoo!

[Zecho]

I'm gonna rush out and get TWO of 'em and yer' all invited over for a massive lan party!! Quake, Duke, Doom, and Descent for everybody!!!

It's rather amazing..

[Night0wl]

How small these sort of things are getting.. Soon enough a mad man with deep enough pockets will be able to buy a terabyte of HD space with a small Beowolf cluster and some highspeed networking and run intense pr0n operations out of his bedroom on a 5U rack.
When they come down in price, then I'll be happy. quick and easy hardware for power users is always nice.

G4 Towers go up to 1.5GB RAM

[TheInternet]

and I don't see why it needs to be limited to 512MB/CPU, the PPC is, after all, a 64bit architecture - the "low end" RS-6000s can take up to 1GB/CPU, more on the big iron

I didn't think that PowerPC was 64-bit, at least not until G5; though Power (a relative) is. But I'm not CPU expert. Don't take my word for it. Regardless, I don' t think the RAM limitation of each node has anything to with that. The current G4 towers, for example, can go up to 1.5GB of RAM, and the high-end iMacs can go up to 1.0GB

- Scott

------
Scott Stevenson

Interesting...

[LHOOQtius_ov_Borg]

I am going to look into buying one, and see what these folks say in response to my inquiry...

However, the limitation of 256MB/512MB RAM/node is a bit off-putting (one part of the site says the cap is 256, the other, 512)... The system starts at $14,900 they say... It will be interesting to see where it goes from there. A Quad Xeon with 1GB from SWT costs $20400 (less if you buy in quantity), and the PPC-based IBM RS-6000 4CPU/4GB is $56,000... so theoretically this rack could be pretty competitively priced for a Linux server...

For my company, the RAM limitation could be a limiting factor (and I don't see why it needs to be limited to 512MB/CPU, the PPC is, after all, a 64bit architecture - the "low end" RS-6000s can take up to 1GB/CPU, more on the big iron)... hopefully versions will come out that at least get 1GB/CPU...

Also, since there is no apparent option for SCSI disks, this may not be your ideal file or image server... but there are obviously some good uses for - though I'd like to know more on pricing of the G4 version and RAM upgrades...

By the way, 8 video ports is pretty amusing... They don't mention the resolution, I wonder if you could make an 8 person QuakeStation out of it ;->

Re:Interesting...

[AArthur]

The problem is limits on the iMac logic board these systems use, and limits on how much memory PowerPC Linux can properly address. iMac's have limited RAM slots, that have a limited capcity per SIMM, that totals up to 512 MB maxium. PowerPC Linux is very experimental at addressing large amounts of memory (over 768 MB), it requires a special kernel compile in option, and Linux 2.4.

SCSI disks are not an option, as the iMac's logic board doesn't have SCSI. They may have firewire (if they are made from iMac DV's logic boards).

They also have the strenghs and limitations of the iMac board. For one they have video outputs from all of the machines. Concivably, as they are 8 discrete systems, you could have it hooked up to 8 different USB keyboards, mice and VGA montiors, and use it to power a full office. Then again, that would be more expensive, and pain then you would want. The limitations are in the RAM, and the 32-bit G3 proccessor, because these are what the iMac has.

Re:Did they make the boxes themselves?

[Phaser777]

I think you're right. Looks like iMac CD-ROM doors on the rackmounted cases. Would also explain the lack of SCSI and gigabit ethernet options.

All this thing needs is...

[jbuhler]

Cool, a multiprocessor on wheels. Now all it needs is a few servo motors, a grasping arm, and a video camera.

Oh, and a high-intensity particle beam. And *missles*!

Re:Not 64-bit

[LHOOQtius_ov_Borg]

Aha, indeed those PPCs are NOT 64-bit... I had not been paying close-enough attention to the chip models... However, even with 32-bit addressing, you can still hit 1GB/CPU (indeed, you can hit 4GB (- overhead) in each individual address space)...

Clearly 4+ CPUs on a single, fast backplane are faster and justified in being more expensive than a cluster... that is why it is interesting to see *how much* less the cluster remains... The "base price" for 8CPUs is about equal to that of a 4CPU Xeon system... that's still interesting...

We've currently got a diskless workstation cluster of 15 Celeron-based systems that cost us $600/ea (in 1unit rackmount cases), and could put something similar together using P3's w/256MB/CPU for around $17k (before any discounts) - but the PPCs should be faster, in theory... though it will require testing and tuning to see they do for our app...

Anyway, must sleep now...