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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?"
I guess
first post mother fuckers!
It was your run of the mill cheapy supercomputer. You couldn't run nuclear explosion simulations on it in any reasonable time or anything.
That's what our SGI's were used for at the last shop :d
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
Repost from http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/slug-chat/2001/O ctober/msg00317.html :P
O ctober/msg00317.html ---------------
On Sun, Oct 28, 2001 at 11:51:06PM +1100, Gnuthad wrote:
> On 28 Oct 2001, Catie Flick said:
> > Well, it was dark, you see, so I pushed it in as hard as I could and
> > thought the little catches were in properly... but they weren't. One
> > powerup and slight burning smell... ooh, what's that? hmm, better power
> > off... put hand in to feel RAM... shit, it burned me! Run to cold water
> > tap, etc.
>
> Uh huh, the reply of "over-stressed female" appears to be totally
> correct
Tell me about it.
I was sitting around with Catie and various other gal pals the other day, and we were swapping makeup tips and and gossiping about men, you know how it is, and then, it was getting a bit late in this girly night, and one of us, a pretty young thing, but a bit flighty, you know how girls are, brought the conversation around to computers.
I'll omit the ridiculous high pitched giggling we indulged in for the sake of your sanity.
"So, um, you know, those um, computer things?"
"Oh yeah, they're kind of scary. Like, you know, really scary. Hard and stuff. It makes me, like, stress, and stuff."
(snips sobs of terror and general female stress, since SLUG is so alert to it as it is, you know how it goes)
"It's a dirty GNU thing anyway."
"Yeah, thank goodness. It, like, hurts my brain."
"Yeah, I made the mistake of trying to do my own computer stuff the other day," said Catie.
(insert gentle feminine frowns and sighs here)
"I hope you realised the error of your ways," said random female.
"Oh yes. It made me stress," said Catie.
The others nodded, understandingly. We've all made that mistake.
"It's definitely a hippy thing. It takes, like, brains and stuff." Giggle, giggle.
"Definitely," chorused the girls.
"I mean, take those dirty GNU hippies on SLUG," said I, sensibly. "Why do your own GNU/Linux... stuff, when there are those GNU guys on SLUG? I mean, like, they're so gay. They do all this stuff, like, all the time. There's no point."
The others nodded at my concise summary of the situation.
"I mean, I used to do SLUG, right?" said I. "And then, I realised how painful I was making it for them with all my female stress. I mean, these guys, they don't stress the same way."
"Really?" chorused the listeners.
there's a difference between ordinary stress and female stress? When girls on SLUG have a problem right, the hippies pick up on the stress, it's special female stress. It used to freak them out. They'd pick up on it right away - 'female stress.' Not just any old stess, they'd point out that it was female stress. They used to make such an effort to point it out. The slightest little problem I had, and they'd detect it - 'arg!' were the cries 'a stressed female, not a pretty sight.' Even, if, you know, I thought I was stessing about something that was, like, totally gender free, like hardware or something, they'd recognise the female stress.
"And here was I, like, a stressed female, and I'm thinking, yeah, hey. I didn't want to disturb all these unkempt longhaired beast-bearded dirty SLUG hippies with my female stress. I mean, they're so gay, and they were so quick to jump on the female stress whenever I did something, I thought they must have a point. So now I've left them to it."
The girls nodded approvingly.
And then we went on to assess the sexual attractiveness of these particular guys from SLUG, the ones that we had so unwittingly stressed on, but maybe you don't want to know what we said.
-Mary.
-- Mary Gardiner
-- Reposted from http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/slug-chat/2001/
BOI-OI-OING
3D hentai made posible from 3rd-party software influenced or certified by SGI.
Thankyou, first post? Damn...Frosty piss...
Don't get me wrong Linux is a great OS for a server and even a home computer, but is it really the best OS of choice for a new supercomputer? Will it be able to fully utilize all of the abilities. I assume in time that it would, but you would have to wait for the open source developers to catch up to the curve.
those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. -isaac asimov
Wow!
NumaFLEX... And to think... All that AMD could come up with was Athlon 64.
You'da thunk that they'd at least stuck a period or an 'e' on there somewhere...
eAthlon.64?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Additionally, it offers unparalleled scalability in the line of Linux supercomputing. This is a system built to grow with a business, although your business better be pretty much grown already to back the check you'd need to fill out to buy it.
My conclusion: it's an excellent largish solution for academia seeking a more stable environment than can be achieved with Beowulf clustering and excellent pricewise solution for businesses seeking to expand without sinking a lot of money into unnecessary costs.
1. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these rendering Natalie Portman pouring hot grits on an insensitive clod.
2. ????
3. Profit!
According to SGI will unveil its
According to who?
I demand an answer!
yep, I was slated to go, and then got told "no, we don't have the money in the budget"...and to top it off, even /. is rubbing it in...
puts head down and weeps as images of shiny, multi-colored SGI systems float through my head
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
(which runs Linux as its OS)
WRONG! It runs linux as it's kernel.
I'm in melinda turnley's class right now and boy does it blow. She doesn't know anything about the in tar net.
SGI was working on Linux (as in modifying the linux kernel and some other software components) for something like this.
Can you give me one good reason why Linux will not be a good supercomputer?
Hmmm... Pie...
You know, the best operating system out there right now: The fucking shit cunt asshole cum cock bitch OS ver 2.51? I love it!
Linux = kernel
GNU/Linux = operating system
It does not run GNU/Linux -- it runs OSCAR.
Get it right, Ho^Hemos!
Here is the simplest computer around, and the interface is perfect because we are all born with it - the interface is human DRIVE. The computer works like this: I stick my pee sprout in your mom's poop chute for 1, and I stick it in her pee hole for 0.
.Net strategy - namely, pay per use. It costs $10 per computation, or 15 minutes, whichever comes first.
poop chute = 1
pee hole = 0
Sometimes I stick it in her mouth, but that is for parity.
Sometimes complex operations can take a long time to complete, but that's okay! We're looking for simplicity here, not speed. And waiting for this interface isn't that bad.
This simple computer is very susceptable to visuses. In fact, it comes pre-loaded with several.
For review:
poop chute = 1
pee hole = 0
This computer also fits into Microsoft's
poop chute = 1
pee hole = 0
Michael Jackson dangles baby out window.
By richard stallman.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
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.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
And we cant even beat one of them.
watched over the pridelands
while the terrible Scar
hunted the antelope into extinction
Well, damn as nearly. Linux is only in catchup when the manufacturor will not release spec on how to use thier hardware.
When it comes to NUMA machines, Linux is up there. It may not excel at everything (yet - I'm sure that it will get there if it's not already). I'm mostly talking about the 2.5 kernel series.
From the status list
New scheduler for improved scalability (Ingo Molnar)
Support for Next Generation POSIX Threading (NGPT team)
Syscall interface for CPU task affinity (Robert Love)
Hotplug CPU support (Rusty Russell)
NUMA topology support (Matt Dobson)
Per-cpu hot & cold page lists (Andrew Morton, Martin Bligh)
NUMA aware scheduler extensions (Erich Focht, Michael Hohnbaum)
The biggest performance changes in 2.5 seem to be in the many thread and many CPU region, including NUMA.
I'd trust it. (Yes, I do do scientific supercomputing).
But at the core it won't resemble anything you've seen. They use linux has a base and design it exactly to their needs. It won't be of much use to about 99.95% of the linux user base. The only reason they chose linux is because its already established and porting over IRIX would mean a near total rewrite. BTW they also own the original UNIX trademark so you can legally call IRIX "UNIX".
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Can you run hurd on it?
eat the stairmaster. shutup the slut get on the fat
I wonder which is worse, Beowulf posts or goatse.cx links?
LINUX!? WHY LINUX!? Why not a stable OS...
Like Windows ME!
That link gets me every time.
This is the real SexyKellyOsbourne.
SLASHDOT COMMUNITY UNITE! Know this: Do not confuse SexyKellyOsbourne (troll at large, physically large too may i add) with the REAL SexyKellyOsbourne
...okay so Linux is being applied to all these terrific projects of scale both large and small. Is it because it's an open system with seemingly hyperactive development or is it because it's simply better than anything else out there?
I'm trying my best to maintain a level of respect for the MS operating system product so I'd like to know if anyone knows of any amazing projects MS OSs are being used for. For that matter, what about other OSs in general?
I think it's terrific that Linux is used this way but I wonder if it's because of its availability or because of its technology. I tend to think it's for its availability but I'm no expert. I think answers and other points of perspective from others in the Slashdot community would help to show some objectivity here.
We should probably include "MOD DOWN! GOAT LINK!" in there too. Anybody stupid enough to leave domain name showing off and to not check the link's location ought to be doomed to stare at a...er...I can't say it. Too disgusting to put into words.
what kernel version?
I've been hanging out at SC2002 all day, and I can tell you that nearly every booth on the show floor is showcasing Linux. Of course all the Linux cluster vendors have it, but so does sgi, Sun, IBM, Intel, AMD, HP, Compaq (separate booths - guess the merger isn't *really* done yet), and all the smaller vendors, to say nothing of all the research labs, etc.
Large linux systems and clusters are really all the rage right now in SC circles. I think the only booths I saw here not using Linux were the Apple booth (though they did have one gorgeous brand-new G4 running Xfree and twm, the sick bastards!) and the Japanese manufacturers NEC and Fujitsu (off in their own worlds, as always).
Linux isn't a big surprise to the SC set, though - this is a group that's used to UNIX. Hell, Microsoft doesn't even have a booth here, and they were at the last LinuxWorld conference.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
You pay a lot of money to get a very large computer that can do very large tasks very fast.
Wasting 20-40% of the resources of your $2k desktop on your OS's feature bloat may not be too bad, but wasting 20-40% of the resources of your $5 mil supercomputer is a lot of money.
Or put another way, Linux is used in supercomputers because it can be set up to do exactly what you want it to, and ONLY that - which for most HPC applications is compiling and running custom code to solve Big Problems.
You're not going to use a 512 processor supercomputer to Save Christmas by being able to get those pictures off your digital camera without spending 3 hours trying to download the drivers.
paintball
- 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.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
i want to SEE it. What does it look like, give me some jpgs to oogle over. Im sick of just imagining these supercomputers and beowulf cluster, lets see them now! Or dont they have digital cameras at these fancy affairs.
I want 2D games back.
I'd like to know if the loopback interface was optimised for such a powerful system.
wow! what a troll! kudos, you made my day :)
Hehe...
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
...I had a visit from my friendly SGi representative and he was trying to sell me... this thing after I asked about Linux clusters. I didn't pay too much attention but he was all hush-hush about it, saying that it hadn't been announced yet. It seems impressive. The smallest machine will have 16 nodes and NumaFlex certainly beats the shit out of a Gb Ethernet. He couldn't quote prices, not that I wanted to know...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
You can buy this machine and run redhat out of the box. But if you want to kick some ass, you need to install all the tweaked out drivers and modifications SGI made in the kernel. This is the stuff that makes the difference (the secret sauce).
Recent benchmarks showed that SGI's customs modifications gave it almost 2x on throughput performance (versus IBM).
Don't forget that some people don't care how much it cost, they only care about real performance. A linux cluster just won't cut it...
-- Leeeter than leet
SGI has been coding for many years (3-4 at least). It released many code in the public domain such as the (defunct) Apache acceleration program which was simply amazing. Don't forget XFS, one of the best filesystem out there. I feel that for marketing reason, they will not release any "performance tuning" code anymore and keep it for themselve. That's good for customers but not so good for us. In a certain way, such code is probably proprietary to their architecture.
-- Leeeter than leet
Because if you take a kid fresh out of the college, he can run Linux. IRIX? hum not so sure.
Another reason? Oracle. You will see some kick ass performance and that'll bring big sales for SGI I'm quite certain! Oracle doesn't run on IRIX although IRIX on MIPS hardware has one of the best performance ratio in the supercomputing area.
It's not about the cost. Everyone knows very well that the cost of the OS isn't really helping sales. It's how familliar people are. Which one would you buy? an IBM box running AIX or Linux? I bet you don't want to learn AIX and will probably choose Linux if you can get pretty much the same performance..!
-- Leeeter than leet
...there will be a link to an SGI rep discussing what they brought to the show this year. He specifically discusses the Intel-based stuff they're working on.
http://www.sc2002.org/
in qt and real
Aaron
SC'02 webcasting committee
SGI's tweaking allows them to achieve very close to linear scalability.
Just remember when a few months/years ago, Linux wasn't scaling well over 8 cpu's. SGI has a 128 CPU solution already. I have to admit that these guys made a VERY good job!
-- Leeeter than leet
SGI = best throughput/bandwidth, Database = Need throughput, Oracle != IRIX but Oracle = Linux.
Obviously, SGI is in need of money. They know how to do the right thing with performance so this will open some doors that were closed before...
Also, you can bring machines closer to the admins w/o IRIX experience. Some people are scared to learn, you know...
Now remember, SGI offers up to 128 cpu in single system image. This is serious compute power and no one else can offer it. You're not talking beowolf, clusters, etc. It's *1* machine.
-- Leeeter than leet
You want to see images: http://www.sgi.com/features/2002/nov/hpc/images/lg _origin_3900_out.jpg
..that some people DON'T CARE ABOUT THE PRICE! All they want is serious kickass performance. They want the answer NOW!
This is what sets SGI apart, their performance...
Even if the Dodge Viper is a fast car, how come you don't see it racing against F1's...? It's simply because don't care about the price. They don't mind spending $20k on a friggin' steering wheel...!
-- Leeeter than leet
Windows can scale to what? 32 cpu's?
Are they any x86 solutions that offer 32 cpu's systems anyway?
-- Leeeter than leet
It's funny, I talked with an SGI rep there and he said "We haven't annouced this yet, so you don't see it sitting there." To which I replied "Why don't you not tell me about what's not sitting there." "Sure, I won't", he said, and proceeded to tell me all about it. :)
Seriously, it looks pretty sweet, but I was more excited by the Origin 3900 -- 16 processors in one C-Brick (4U).
Here
Maybe someone can describe the bricks?
-- Leeeter than leet
Having the chance to work with an IRIX version, I can tell you that you can actually do TCP over Numa at the speed of 3.2Gpbs so it's more than 3 times.
They also have a faster interconnection that allows 6.4 Gpbs so you can copy the equivalent of a whole CD rom per SECOND(!).
I wish my ISP could do that, unfortunately, my PC is decades behind that kind of performance...
-- Leeeter than leet
The current generation of SGI NUMAflex based machines use a mesh of full duplex 3.2 GByte/sec interconnects. That's 25.6 Gbit/sec.
:)
That's way more than 3 times. Plus the latency is several orders of magnitude less.
The tradeoff is cost. A fully populated rack (32 Itanium2 CPUs or 128 MIPS R1x000 CPUs) starts at $1M can can easily run upwards of $4M. If your task is CPU bound, then a homebrew cluster will be almost as good. If your task is I/O bound, you can't beat the Origin. Until the Cray X1 ships, anyway.
Also keep in mind that while an Origin system can be partitioned, they are typically run as one single image system. The beasts easily expand from 2 CPUs up to 512 (even 1024 with special support from SGI). The cross-system memory latency increases with the larger configurations, but the net cross-section bandwidth/thruput increases linearlly with the CPU count. Very efficent design.
Pretty sweet machine. Again, until the Cray X1 ships!
== TrollBuger
(acting like a CHICKENSHIT TOSSER by posting ANNONYMOUSLY!)
in some sort of 32-bit emulation mode? using only a half gig of ram? yeah, i bet that would be GREAT.
For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in
despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the
implacable grandeur of this life.
-- Albert Camus
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