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Cray Linux Beowulf Clusters
An anonymous reader wrote in to say that Cray has announced that they will be selling their own Linux Beowulf clusters. They're apparently gonna be working with Scyld on the software, and they of course have some crazy hardware (of course the name is SuperCluster, but I guess stupid names are nothing new ;)
I'm just talkin' 'bout Cray
-- This void intentionally left null.
In the slides/brochure linked from their home page.
Beowulf killed Grendel, didn't he? He's a murderer!!!
Sure looks like it.
How about taking a couple Cray supercomps, and installing Beowolf on all of them. It would be a cluster of Crays.
Someone you trust is one of us.
It seems to me that there's a very good reason why Cray chose Linux for this. There is a plethora of source code for Linux apps available for it. Since they chose Alpha processors, they'll need some softwrae for it, and since there are relatively few Alpha binary software distributions, it seems quite logical.
Not really- it's just they aren't highly visible. The need for traditional HPC machines continues because there are some computational problems that do not scale well to hundreds of off-the-shelf clustered PC's (even clustered Alpha PC's.)
"The sentient may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentient"
Actually, with it being January in Chicago, my a/c works wonderful with windows open.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
How beautiful is the snowshine in your eyes, so directly current from the static in your brain.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
This is not a cluster of Cray mainframes they are talking about!
Cray have announced that they will be selling a Beowulf cluster made up of a big pile of API networks' CS20s. These are 1U rack-mounted PCs using DEC Alphas running at 750MHz. You could build one of these yourself at home if you cared to - Cray are simply using their name to resell a cluster of alpha boxes.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Aren't you something! Post a bucket of piss and bad attitude and don't event sign your name! If you've got a gripe that you think is worth our hearing you should at least be proud enough to tell us who you are. If you're not, you're just another whiny bastard who thinks I should give a sh*t.
- Sig this!
So when person/company XYZ release Crayon Linux they'll get Cray on the legalese phone saying "We Own Cray-On" =P
Just think, we could miss out on a linux aimed at two year olds! Oh. Windows. Never mind. Cray-On it is.
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Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
I supposed it would be too much too hope for Cray to name this the 'Z' line. Might make marketing tougher: "Yes, sir; I'd like to spend a jillion dollars on a Cray-Z Super Computer. No? I see."
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
My sentiments exactly.
I agree. This is kind of like Jaguar deciding to start selling an economy sub-compact.
What you are saying, is that the next MS Office will need a cluster of Crays to run?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm not saying /. is perfect or anything, but I'm not gonna whine about something that I can't/won't do something about.
Sheeesh! Your little manifesto is wordier and more annoying than JonKatz. Hey, are you trying to con Taco-boy into getting you on the payroll?
/*drunk.. fix later*/
Of course, SGI used to put the Cray label on all Origins with 64 or more processors. But I don't suppose that counts...
You're probably also right in thinking that Cray #4 has more Cray than Tera. But I think the result is closer to Cray #2 than Cray #1.
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I wonder if Cray intends to use one of it's proprietary networking (like craylink) instead of 100/1000Base-t. IMHO- that would be quiet bad ass. Even more so because the source code would provide and *amazing* example (the core theory... like how cray manages memory or distributes load) for the open source super computer community.
Also, could this help Compaq feel better that it's still keeping the Alpha alive? It's really quite sad to see such an awsome chip not in much use.
to make it one better...
a set worker accidentally spilled hot grits on the beowulfed cray machine that was embedding encrypted DeCSS code into the 3-d rendering of Natalie Portman in the Episode II love scenes with Anakin...
- passion
In those cases you *can* tune your code to the number of available boxes and interconnect performance - perhaps by partitioning your problem space and cascading data exchanges across groups of nodes. Granted, not all problems can be executed asychronously, but in most cases you can rethink the problem in a way that avoids massive cross updates. The situation you describe leaves whatever interconnect in place idle for the majority of the time.
Does this make... a Crayowulf?
Cray has an incredible reputation in the HPC business so I suspect that some places will buy clusters from them simply because they are Cray and have provided excellent service in the past.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
from the article:
The company has received an early order agreement from BioNumerik Pharmaceuticals and expects to announce multiple orders by the time of the product launch
it's kinda interesting. especially since pharmaceuticle companies spend most of their money on advertisement and management.
i guess this will be to support the accounting package that would be required to funnel all of that money into management and ad's. the extra cpu cycles can be spent rendering 3d molecules for the commercials.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Hey Ray-
.sig (if you don't mind...).
Your alt. names are okay, but I just wanted to point out a flaw in your
Air conditioners work fine when windows are open, they just don't work well. So:
Computers are like air conditioners; they don't work well with Windows open.
EC
they should try airnet.
i hear that rocks.
A company called Tera recently purchased Cray, and renamed itself to Cray.
The former supercomputer company is now actually a division of a company called cray, who most likely has other products, including this.
Should have done that ages ago.
I kiss you all!
Yuck, oh no you bloody don't!
Conventional supercomputers aren't just really fast serial machines. They're parallel, just with better interprocecessor communication lines and (usually) shared memory.
(nil)
The next time someone tells you that SGI ran Cray into the ground, just remember that Cray did most of this to themselves, with a combination of massive ego's, unwillingness to consider other points of view, and allowing themselves to be embedded in a completely dysfunctional organization.
I used to work for SGI, but my involvement with the Cray side was very limited. So I bow to your interpretation, which is very plausible in any case.
Still, I think SGI's "lack of focus" is kind of a secondary problem. They've never really had a managment capable of achieving focus, or any broad goal. Current insiders tend to blame this on Wall Street, which went to see Jurasic Park and came away determined to throw money at those who created the technology. Being awash in cash is sure death for any pioneer technology company -- it allows them to avoid addressing all the organizational issues that relate to their long-term survival.
__________________
It's so fast-
How fast is it?
It's so fast, it takes TWO halt instructions to stop it!
Humor that predates the Arpanet
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"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
As an example, when not working on bioperl :) my day job is with a company that only builds clusters and linux compute farms for the hardcore biotech and pharma crowd. The reason people hire us is that besides the hardware geeks we also have the PhD level computational biologists who understand the algoritihms, software and underlying science. Knowing what your customer is trying to do with the cluster helps greatly in configuring and tuning it :)
Profit margins in hardware, especially in the commodity intel platform are almost non-existant. The way you make money is with the services and software you put on top of the inexpensive hardware.
just my$.02
-chris
In hindsight, it may have also had something to do with the big IBM shutdowns in Rochester (MN) at the same time. I disrecall what lines IBM cut there, but it was something along the mainframe line, which is something completely different. It may have also been the ongoing "dumping" lawsuit they had with Hitachi(?) that was regularly featured, too.
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a beowulf cluster of these? oh yeah - fp!
I kinda like the name "Penguin Power Punch". Or the Beo-guin? Or the Slashguin...yeah, I like that one.
Don't know much about these big beasts, but the Cray supercluster being described here outweighs something like an IBM S/390 running Linux by a factor of?
Choose your scale: ips, ops, ability to compress a 2 1/2 hour DVD to MPEG4 format, etc.
Serious question.
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
...he could call it the Bad MuthaCluster.
(insert rimshot here)
to what those supercomputing gurus can make out of alpha/linux combination. I hope they use compiler designed by them, last time I checked gcc was pretty bad on alpha processors. Would be cool if they ported some of the unicos massive parallel machine code to linux/cluster.
Come on Taco, what's next, a story about how a set worker for Episode II accidentally spilled hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants? Christ, why not just rename this Trolldot and be done with it?
For some applications if you have a slow interconnect, it won't bring anything adding other boxes to the cluster, even by tuning the code. If every ten cycle every node exchange its data with evrey other node, there will be a performance degradation if the cluster has too many nodes with an ethernet interconnect.
Chuchi
Cray making beowolf clusters, huh? Does that seem a little strange to anyone else? I mean, if you are going to buy a Cray, buy a Cray! Of course, I guess being able to say that you have a Cray AND a Beowolf cluster is serious bragging rights
Jaeger
www.JohnQHacker.com
GodHatesCalvinists.com
With so many companies selling Bowulf cluster, you got to wonder what makes them so diffence? I mean you have Compaq, VA Linux, Penguin Computers, the mom and pop store up the street and now SGI all doing a wget for the latest beowulf tarball and running scripts to build the package. Sorta pointless really.
MarNuke
damn you!
i'm crayyyyyyy linux beowulf clusta man. gimmie some canday
Where exactly do you read Cray will build Beowulf clusters?
For what I'm understanding of the article, Cray will be selling a platform capable of running Beowulf. Quote: (Don Becker) ``Scyld believes the SuperCluster is a pioneering initiative that will produce a strong, differentiated platform capable of fully exploiting the best available commercial technologies, such as Scyld's Beowulf operating system. [...]" In other words: SuperCluster sounds like hardware to me.
The article is very sparse on details, though.
However, I am very exited about the fact another Big Name [tm] joins the Linux revolution ;-)
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
ROTFLMAO!
Wow more open source at the high end. And we are seeing more at the low end. Feeling squeezed micro$oft.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
I thought this was kinda funny...
Gee, Cray is definitely the "Global supercomputer leader." Their fastest computer is an incredible .18 times as fast as IBM's.
[According to the latest TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list, Cray's fastest computer is ranked tenth.]
-thz
I think i am now stupider now than i was before reading this post!
Actually these are going to be API Networks CS20 dual Alpha 21264 machines in 1U cases.0 1. shtml
Here is the the API press release:
http://www.apinetworks.com/pressreleases/pr0129
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
So if you can't beat 'em, join them, huh? Guess what'd happen if M$ caught up on this...
"...Fear the people who fear your computer"
That said, at least for the time being, a single memory image system like the Cray T3D/T3E or the Origin line from us (SGI) has better latencies by a lot than Myrinet.
The interesting thing is that as these "OS Bypass" interconnects develop, they are going to get more and more like a standard memory interconnect in a single memory image system and we'll come full circle. But I digress.....
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
This could be nice. I'm sure it will be pretty popular in more than a few markets. Just think about how shweet it will be to get a Linux/Beowulf cluster that:
- Is prebuilt and tested
- Works right out of the box (Or at least with very little hassle.)
- Comes with backing/support from an old, well known vendor.
I like the idea of being able to justify linux to management...
Of course, but you just have to tune your code to use the available interconnects efficiently. The worlds largest 'supercomputer' is Seti@home's NOW (network of workstations). You view their program as a huge cluster with massively slow interconnects - yet they still manage to process huge amounts of data. Code written for a 4gb/s backplane machine isn't optimized for a 1gb/s backplane, nor a 100mb ethernet 'backplane'. - Josh Siler
Oh, wow... Could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these things?
Oh... nevermind!
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
Well it is off the shelf components just not any shelf :)
Chuchi
Bear in mind that there have been at least four entities called "Cray". All but one would be perfectly at home building clustered micros.
__________________
I made a beowulf cluster too.
You can read more about my beowulf cluster at this site.
Slashdot is a good place to spam your own beowulf website!
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Check out my blackbox styles
Is that a Cray SuperCluster vibrating in your jeans pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
Blog,Twitter
We are doing the public roll-out of the new Beowulf system that we've been working on for the past two years. Drop by our booth if you would like to see a demo.
I think perhaps my Beoimpotence may have something to do with watching 75% of that Christopher Lambert "Beowulf" movie. Thank G-d the videotape broke. If it had been a DVD, I might have gone insane.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
'nuff said
That's pretty funny coming from the guy that came up with "Slashdot"? ;-)
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The only thing I wonder about this is latency.. assuming they're interconnected with ethernet, wouldn't latency be _terrible_ compared to a typical multi-processor machine?
Nobody needs million$ of dollar$ in capital for HPC anymore -- unless their software really kicks ass or they have some sort of edge in price or support, they're just another cluster vendor.
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There may always be a market for the old-style supercomputers, but it is almost certainly going to be much smaller in the years to come. This announcement seems like Cray acknowledging that fact, and trying to keep up with the changes so they will still have a market when and if the big-iron approach dies.
you know, if you spammed with a real account, most people (as opposed to us freaks that browse at -1 thresh) might see it.
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
I suspect that within the next year or so you will start seeing Infiniband based clustering solutions. Using RDMA writes, you have very fast remote memory access that does not require host processor. Imagine PCI but faster with a network like topology. Can't wait...
-- soldack
Its not really a hacker thing, more of an old internet (or perhaps usenet thing).
HTH. HAND. (Hope that helps. Have a nice day.)
"That fat, dumb, and bald guy sure plays a mean hardball."
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
ps. Now, of course, we're going to see more course posts by ACs on Beowulf Clusters. Yay. I, of course, am going to continue browsing at thresh 1 as a matter of course.
-PARANOIA is fun. D20 is not fun. The Computer says so.
-The Computer
to see a non-clustered version of this
Still, if you're gonna buy a Beowulf cluster (as opposed to just making one yourself), one with a "Cray" label is way cooler than anything with "IBM" on the box. At least it's an Alpha cluster; it won't say "You-know-what Inside".
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.