Terascale Computing System Installed

lysie writes The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, with Compaq and the NSF, has installed the Terascale Computing System. Worldwide, it's second in power only to ASCI White at Livermore. However, it's the most powerful system in the world for unclassified research--6 teraflops per second. 3,000 Compaq Alpha EV68 microprocessors, in 750 four-processor AlphaServer systems running Tru64 UNIX."

Comments

I was gonna say it...

[feronti]

But they're already working on building a Beowulf cluster of these. Though that sounds really wierd, now that I think about it... a Beowulf cluster of clusters... especially since each node in the cluster has 4 processors itself. Wow. Truly fractal computing.

Scales like a real UNIX should

[SumDeusExMachina]

3,000 Compaq Alpha EV68 microprocessors, in 750 four-processor AlphaServer systems running Tru64 UNIX.

There will probably be a lot of people here asking "why isn't this running Linux?", without really knowing what they're talking about. First of all, Linux just doesn't have the kind of scalability that a commercial UNIX, particularly Tru64, does. Secondly, Tru64 is quite well-known for its excellent clustering capabilities, and its tight integration with the Alpha platform leads to high efficiency in computing. Finally, when you are paying $43 million for a supercomputer, you most certainly are going to be running the best software out there too, and frankly, the only reason that people out there are writing free software is that no one would want to pay for their code.

When you pay for the cost of commercial UNIX systems, you are paying for the assurance that 1) you aren't going to have stupid design flaws like the one the 2.4 kernel has in its inability to use virtual memory efficiently and 2) All of your nice new custom hardware is going to be supported, and frankly, high performance drivers for high-end hardware under Linux are sorely lacking.

Re:Scales like a real UNIX should

[Marcus Brody]

All though I agree with most of what you are saying, I think you should think about toning down the flamage:

the only reason that people out there are writing free software is that no one would want to pay for their code.

This is clearly not the only reason. There are a number of philisophical & practical reasons for free software. Furthermore, ther are numerous examples of people who are paid to write free software (e.g. linus, alan cox); and people who are paid to write propriety code (i.e. they are good enough programmers that someone is willing to pay them) in their job, but also are involved in free software projects in their own time.

Re:Scales like a real UNIX should

[Sircus]

"the only reason that people out there are writing free software is that no one would want to pay for their code."

I'm no expert on Tru64 scalability, but this level of flamebait makes this post highly suspect to my mind. Would someone who both knows something on the subject and can manage to comment without bad-mouthing the competition care to say whether this post is really +3, Insightful?

Terascale Computing System Installed

[fea]

So why in the h$#% are we allowing Compaq to rid itself of Alpha processors? For those of us fortunate enough to have them (I use two at work), they are unbelievable number crunchers. Why? Why?