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Most Powerful Computer in Canada - for a Day

Posted by timothy on from the fleeting-fame dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On Nov. 4, 18 Canadian universities and will create the most powerful computer in Canada for a day to solve an important computational chemistry question in one day -- a task that would normally take six years to complete." Here is more information on the temporary supercomputer available at the project's home page and at UofG's News.

15 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Beer Cooled Supercomputer by Myriad · · Score: 5, Funny
    On Nov. 4, 18 Canadian universities and will create the most powerful computer in Canada for a day to solve an important computational chemistry question in one day

    Coincidentally, on Nov 4, Canadian Universities will create the world's first beer-cooled supercomputer, "Drunk Blue".

    When asked why beer, the researchers involved explained that it was both plentiful and "what else would you use Blue for?".

    --
    "They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
  2. The first test has commenced... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can it survive with the Slashdot effect?

  3. hey wait a sec! by MoceanWorker · · Score: 5, Funny

    imagine a beowulf clu... err.. wait.. dammit..

    --


    "The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
    1. Re:hey wait a sec! by Guppy06 · · Score: 5, Funny

      "imagine a beowulf clu... err.. wait.. dammit.."

      Damn, someone beat me to it. I guess I'll just have to go with:

      All your computers are belong to Canada.

      But that's just so last year...

  4. ChemEx(TM) by MacAndrew · · Score: 5, Funny

    For when you absolutely, positively need that chemistry problem solved by the next day.

  5. As this will asked anyway, from the FAQ by jukal · · Score: 5, Informative
    "Why didn't they just make a client program for distributed computing so the entire country/world could help out?" (From a Slashdot posting.)

    First, we had to keep CISS-1 simple enough for us to manage. Second, the computational chemistry application has significant resource requirements (e.g., large memory, significant disk space, etc.). Third, we are not interested in "cycle stealing" for CISS-1; the machines that we use will be dedicated to the task at hand. The rest of the FAQ is here.

    *** and now to the commercials, for the final time, here is an analysis of the Slashdot effect.

    1. Re:As this will asked anyway, from the FAQ by jukal · · Score: 5, Informative
      SETI currently does integrity checks by having the same unit calculated several times then taking the most common result..

      Yes, and imagine the case of the distributed crypto-crack efforts such as those run by distributed.net and by us too for the rc5-56 challenge (the cyberian.org effort). Imagine, that someone fakes the results for just the keyspace, which contained the correct key - and that this forged result passes the controls. Now, as result the progress counter might reach 100% and you still did not find the correct key. The only solution would be to calculate the whole keyspace again. I mean, even if you check the integrity - calculate same task for 10 times for example - still, it is possible that the forge gets through. Ofcourse, there is a number of counter actions to make the forging harder but still, I think the key problem is still unanswered. Or, if someone has some good fresh pointers about this subject, please post them here :)

  6. In Other News... by Quaoar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Canada is clustering all of their fishing ships to create the most powerful Canadian navy yet.

    --
    I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
    1. Re:In Other News... by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Informative

      While it's fun to joke about Canada, it should be noted that when it's actually needed (i.e. not against a bunch of two bit little shithole nations, or just to continue to push a military-export policy) Canada quickly becomes a military powerhouse.

      "The Canadian Navy began the Second World War with half a dozen vessels and ended up policing nearly half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian Soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the War with the World's 3rd largest Navy and the fourth largest Air Force. The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had in previous times.......In film, Hollywood abandoned the notion of a separate Canadian identity"

    2. Re:In Other News... by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      With all due respect, and I'm a Canadian and I have served in our nation's armed forces, I think this is past tense. The logic of keeping piles of generals handy to suddenly recruit and train a whack of soldiers is kind of broken, given the nature of modern conflicts.

      Not sure if I agree with that. Real conflict still generally build up over time. Even for the Iraq situation the US took quite a few months (a year?) to build up its forces surrounding Iraq before it began the offensive.

      The constant criticism of the Canadian military, and calls for multi-billion dollar budget increases, might have some of its roots in the arms industry- An industry that wants to make us believe that we need loads of high tech equipment to sit rotting in warehouses, ready for multi-billion dollar upgrades 5 years down the road. Military equipment comes at a cost to social programs, healthcare, etc, or alternately higher taxes. Our individual soldiers are paid quite well (I was surprized when a friend recently joined to see the pay rates), have fantastic personal equipment and good bases.

      While we hear constant cries about the "dangerous new world", the reality is that the classic militarism of yesteryear is a bygone thing: The US has nominated itself, and achieved by default, global policeman. Though this role is costly to her, it was a self-pursued role, and comes with a healthy bonus of being able to promote and pursue her own self-interests. Of course, simpleton morons like Pat Buchanan would try to cast such a role not as a self-serving role, but as a role which we should all send a cheque in the mail.

      I *wish* we could actually help out some of the places that really need help right now. But we can't even keep a thousand guys in Afghanistan for a year, let alone buy those guys some appropriate camouflage fatigues in a timely fashion. And don't get me started on the Sea King or its replacements....

      I think the camouflage issue was more of a political red herring: There isn't an armed forces on the planet, except perhaps the US, that has camo for every possible battlefield situation. The Afghan conflict came up just as a prior batch was destroyed and the new batch was on order. It happens. Personally I think, given the nature of the military, that some of the elite teams showed true military gumption and they quite literally made their own, creating some of the best camo possible. The Sea King is indeed an unfortunate reality, but again compared with the acquisition of a fleet of modern subs, missile frigates, and cormorant helicopters, it's amazing how much attention the Sea King garners. Again, take a close look at the $ vested interests who are looking at lining up at the trough.

      We are a relatively small country, and the simple reality is that our military will always pale aside the US', just as the military of every other NATO countries does. I'm perfectly fine with that. We went into Afghanistan with troops that were perfect for the non-conventional modern warfare (i.e. snipers), did a great job, and got out after the situation had pretty much settled. Actually the causative factor for us leaving Afghanistan was probably the death of 4 soldiers by friendly fire: Given that the conflict was pretty much resolved, such a needless loss couldn't be repeated.

  7. For One Day? by Anenga · · Score: 5, Funny
    Most Powerful Computer in Canada - for a Day
    Oh, give them more credit than that. It takes more than one day for "the fastest computer" to be obsolete. Maybe a month, or two.
  8. CANADA! by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Funny

    First the alarming lead in Zamboni technology, now this!!

  9. Ah, the memories by morcheeba · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmph. I remember back in January of '98 when I had the most powerful computer in Canada! Just me, my laptop, some cold soup from a can, and some candles...

    --
    HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
  10. Re:Computing in Canada by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yeah, yeah. This is only funny to those who don't live in Canada, of course.

    That would be.... let's see .... 99.5% of the world's population?

  11. Wait just a gosh-darn minute here by ottffssent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it's going to solve in a day what would otherwise take 6 years, it has to be almost 2200 times as powerful as their baseline. With 18 universities cooperating, that's about 120 times the baseline provided by each uni. From the article: "The University [one of the 18] will have 108 computer processors helping work on the problem." So, their baseline is a slow single-processor machine - who thinks that's anywhere near a fair comparison? Wow, we built a cluster! And it's lots faster than a single-processor machine! Never would have guessed!

    So they've got 2000 processors working on this problem. Probably about as much horsepower as 1000 recent CPUs, or 250 U of rackspace. About 7 racks full of 1U systems with 4 Athlons in 'em. A million dollars would easily cover that, and if you stick it in northern Canada, you get cold clean air for free so the ongoing costs would be much less as well.

    What I'm getting at is that I'm not real impressed, either with the article or with the project. If they spent more than 3 weeks organizing this, it would have been faster to just have one uni run the simulation in-house.

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    High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)