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Sun Releases Starcat
SilentChris writes: "Sun has released the Starcat server, a beast with up to 106 processors running Unix. Anyone have an extra couple [million] bucks lying around?" They're not cheap.
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until it shows up on e-bay from a disgruntled former dot bomb employee who five-fingered it from a linux shop which stole BSD code.
Lets remember, that this system is not intended to replace a beowolf cluster of cheap pc's. It is intended to do something that most beowolf clusters can never do: present a single OS image with half a terabyte of memory that any cpu can access at very high speed.
This is a system that is very good at things like fluid dynamics and massive database operations. It is not a good idea if all you want to do is get to the top of the list for the SETI@Home project
The system grows to 106 in the following way:
There are 18 "cpu/memory" boards that hold 4 cpu's each. This brings the system up to a total of 72 cpu's and 576GB of ram.
Now, if you want an server that just does number crunching and dont care about I/O, you can then add 'MaxCPU" modules. Each module holds two additional cpu's (no memory) and occupies the hPCI module slot (a hot swap PCI case that can hold what looks like two to four pci cards). You can use up to 17 of the hPCI module slots to hold MaxCPU modules. (there are 18 pci channels on the system, and at least one must be used for accessing the boot disk).
So there ya have it, 106 cpu's and half a terabyte of ram. I think that in most cases, folks will opt to not use the MaxCPU modules and just stick to the 72 cpu limit.
Dear Santa,
I've been a real good gEek this year. I wrote several white-hat worms to fix IIS holes. I defended IP rights in the Linux kernel. I also mirrored the LOTR trailer.
Could I please get just one little old Starcat Server from Sun? Please make sure it is the 106 processor version with 576 GB of RAM.
I will be real good and use my idle time for SETI.
Your pal,
digital_freedom
P.S. Chocolate chip cookies are your favorite right?
"Wow, look at all the hits we're getting on the Starcat shopping cart! We're going to make a mint on these suckers!"
As someone who does nothing with these types of systems, nor follows them, I think it's great that you can have different processor speeds using "partitions."
I wonder if memory is treated the same way... i.e., separated by "partitions," or if you also have a choice to use it as one, large unified memory resource... or, I wonder if memory can be dynamically partitioned... hmm.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it... are all of the processor partitions considered peers? I mean, are the partitions all treated as if they were a single processor... then treated equally?
"Huh? I understand that the nation's air traffic controllers may need updated equipment in light of the existing crisis, but how hard can scheduling be? I could see a use for a massively parallel monster like this in, say, flow-through or structural analysis or something, but scheduling? "
What your missing is that this isn't a matter of airtraffic control. This is a matter of determining which planes and crews to fly to which locations at what times to maximize revenue. This is a classic, big, nasty travelling salesman problem. The bigger of a beast of a machine you get, the closer you get to an optimized solution. I.E. Most passengers willing to pay this most money with the least use of resources. It's a huge problem that needs massive computational power.
The SGI origin has a ccNUMA architecture, which makes it great for some tasks, ok for others, and awful for yet others. (the trick is to make sure that your particular app falls under the 'great' category)
The sun system is an smp based system, everything connects to a common backplane and each board has equal access to all of the other boards. With the sgi, the speed of accessing memory on the local board or boards in the same cabinet is much faster than hits to memory in remote cabinets.
From what I can tell, Sun is planing on producing a special system board that goes into one of those 18 slots. Thus, with 19 StarCats you can create one big system with 1836 cpu's and 9.7TB of ram. (think of a system in the middle that acts as the center of a star) it will most likely be based on a COMA architecture rather than a ccNUMA. Like the SGI, memory access will depend on the distance between the requesting cpu and the storage location. The difference is that under COMA, if a cpu requests a particular bit of memory a lot, that page is either migrated or copied to a memory bank on that cpu's memory board (so if 5 cpu's all need read only access to the same bit of memory, then they can each have their own copy in a local memory bank. write updates are what make the system a pain in the ass to manage ).
We all know strncat() is better.
Liberty in your lifetime