SGI NUMAflex Linux System On Display @ SC2002

jarrod.smith writes " According to SGI will unveil its Intel® Itanium® 2 NUMAflex shared-memory supercomputer architecture (which runs Linux as its OS) at Supercomputing 2002 which runs this week in Baltimore, MD. The link at SGI says the system will be on display at the show. The exhibit floor opens this evening. Unfortunately I did not go this year. Can those lucky enough to be at the meeting scope it out and post comments?"

Comments

Re:LINUX OS

[sql*kitten]

Consider installing some propriatory OS instead.. where they cannot play around, change kernel design, drivers, VM or whatever they fancy. Would not that be a greater drawback ?

But IBM already have the source to AIX... they wrote it.

You're way behind the times.

[aussersterne]

The "open source developers" of which you speak now count among their number professional developers from companies like IBM and SGI who have been working hand over foot for the last few years to bring Linux to large computing platforms. Check the development mailing lists.

It's not like Linus has been sitting in his bedroom coding for a decade and now suddenly SGI is going to download the kernel and throw it at supercomputing hardware. Big companies are and have been investing development dollars in Linux in order to make Linux ready for platforms like this one. And the great thing about Linux is that whatever SGI or IBM adds, the community tends to get back in the form of permanent enhancements to Linux.

It makes sense, really

[tyler_larson]

Linux is great for many projects like this because it posesses some qualities you won't find most other places. In particular:

• No royalties. They can use it, hack it, sell it. Whatever they want, and never have to cut a check to anyone.
• The resources. The Linux development community is unlike any other. Using Linux means you have access to all sorts of development and product resources for absolutely free. The newsgroups are friendly, the documentation is deep. And if you're doing something weird, do it with Linux and chances are someone will help you.
• The name. If you need to impress the suits and get funding, Linux is a name you want to include. For a lot of people, Linux=cutting-edge technology. They don't understand it, but they know it's powerful, and they know it's gaining ground fast.
• The power. There's no two ways around it. Linux is a powerful and flexible system. You can push it, pull it, tune it and tweak it to do just about anything. Unlike some other OSes, the kernel was written to stand on its own, not necessarily part of any prefab package. There's no GUI code in the TCP/IP stack, and it's just as happy in a PDA as it is in a supercomputer. Could you honestly immagine LLNL buying a Windows-based clustered supercomputer? Yeah. Me neither.

Using Linux helps companies keep from having to re-invent the wheel while at the same time keeping their options open and their money in their own pocket. It works so well it's a wonder more companies don't use it.

For those afraid of the GPL, BSD presents a tempting alternative. But again, you lose a bit of the development resources and don't have the name to use to get your funding. For most people, though, GPL isn't a problem.

Re:If i remember correctly

[khuber]

Technically Linux is just a kernel. You can't do much at all with just a kernel. You could print AAAA from one process and BBBB from another, but who would want to do that?

-Kevin

Re:LINUX OS

[John Whitley]

Why not use IRIX?

Three reasons:

1. Good business sense. Instead of maintaining the whole OS, SGI (and other companies) can meet their requirements in the Linux kernel environment, focusing only on the value they need to add to the system. Who wants to reinvent all the old-hat stuff like driver or filesystem interfaces, anyways?

2. Good business sense. Very few companies except Microsoft make money from an Operating System. Rewriting an OS from scratch is a huge business risk and cash investment unless you're into very specialized hard-core OS R&D work. See Plan 9 and EROS for examples of, IMO, well-founded OS projects that started from scratch.

   Recall that SGI is a platform vendor. You buy a package of hardware and software from them. If their software costs are lower, that translates directly into higher margins. Apple made a similar "don't reinvent the wheel" decision in the choices that led to MacOS X, which left them time to focus on their true focus of applications and system usability.

3. Good business sense.With large development projects, it's useful to spread the development cost across a large population of developer-users. I.e. this is a driving motivation behind collaborative open source development. Only now it's happening at the corporate level instead of the level of the individual developer.

Re:LINUX OS

[Meister]

To be fair, if you don't need this machine.. don't buy it or think about it

I disagree... if you need a decent server, especially a scalable one, this machine is for you. You can start out small and add stuff as you need it.

Wanna run a database? This machine is perfect. You can add to more CPUs to the system if you need them. You can also add more I/O to the system independently, w/o changing your CPU count unless you need to. For those reasons, this machine would also be great as a general purpose server for running apps of any sort that need server class I/O and CPU power.

Wanna run some crash simulation codes? Again, this machine is perfect. You can run a threaded version or an MPI version and get tremendous performance because of the massive memory bandwidths and low latencies that this system provides.

OTOH, if you wanna run Quake or UT you should probably get a Clawhammer or one of those hyperthreaded P4s.

SGI is a dying company

This machine is the most general purpose machine that SGI has put out in a long time, due to the fact that it runs Linux on Intel. This should mean bigger markets will be available to SGI, hopefully preventing its demise.

Re:it may be called linux

[Twirlip of the Mists]

WTF are you talking about? SGI does not own the original UNIX trademark. The Open Group owns that trademark. SGI has gotten various versions of IRIX certified by The Open Group as conforming to various UNIX standards, and that's why they're entitled to call IRIX "UNIX."