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US Navy buys Apple as Linux Platform
Nine Mirrors Turning writes "According to the Register the US Navy has ordered 260 XServe servers running Yellow Dog Linux from Terra Soft Solutions. Terra Soft is the only reseller allowed to resell Apple hardware with a third-party operating system installed. The XServes will be modified by a unnamed third-party and will be running a custom kernel. The XServes are destined for US Navy submarines and will be used for real-time image processing. I do wonder how many will be installed on each sub, though. Are we talking clustering here? I didn't even know the USN was running Linux on front-line ships."
From post: Are we talking clustering here?
From Article On board clusters of the Apple rack server will be used for real-time image processing.
Emphasis mine
Most likely the stuff the XServes will be doing benefits greatly from Altivec acceleration. IIRC there's a lot of vectorising that can be done on most image processing algorithms.
In that case PowerPC servers are a given, and Apple's are probably some of the best on bang for the buck.
Major price difference. A coworker of mine has a proposal under consideration, spec'd-out using either Apple or Sun hardware, and the Sun boxes are much more expensive.
"I didn't even know the USN was running Linux on front-line ships."
They probably looked at alternatives after Windows NT crashed from a division-by-zero error and left a navy ship dead on the water for several hours.
As someone else has already pointed out, there are some architectural advantages in the PPC vs. the x86 comparissons, more specifically the use of Altivec extensions in the current G4s (and of course G5s).
Some tests have already proven that the G5 is not overwhelmingly superior to the G4 when using Altivec code (just a linear increase with the clock rates). Thus waiting for G5 systems is probably not needed in this case.
As the article clearly states, these systems will be used for signal processing applications, where the vector extensions really shine. So in terms of computational power/required energy to run (very important in submarines, i assume) i can image that the G4 are very competitive.
As for the Linux vs. Os X, well, we do have to agree that Linux is very well supported and already qualified for many tasks/contracts (which Os X might not??).
T
The only reason I can think of why they may not want to use an Intel solution, is that there won't be space on the subs for the air-conditioning they'd need. Still, they could put the racks in a freezer...
Maybe performance is an issue? Learn about AltiVec here.
No doubt the primary consideration here is operations/second, with operations/watt being a close second, and operations/volume being a near third. The G4 is the industry leader for the first two criteria, and the XServe is a COTS implementation with a low volume requirement.
Also, Apple gear is known for its quality/reliability and these things might be expected to run for 6 months without the possibility of service or replacement.
Plus, with the G5's announced, they can expect to double their performance in a year with a million dollar swapout but they can get started today. That's really frikkin' cheap for retrofitting a sub fleet. This probably can be seen as confirmation that the XServe is not going to have a formfactor change with the G5's (most likely on the 90nm process in Nov).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
(From the article)
The Navy wanted a custom Xserve chassis, and the work was organized by Terra Soft who employed a third-party to modify the hardware. Terra Soft provided a custom kernel and drivers for Fibre Channel storage.
So perhaps Apple weren't interested in making custom X-Serves, or hacking OS X to fit...
Whatever the custom hardware is (Fibre-Channel disk arrays by the sound of it) probably isn't supported by stock OS X.
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That was the Yorktown.
2 .h tm
http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov
"Atlantic Fleet officials acknowledged that the Yorktown last September experienced what they termed "an engineering local area network casualty," but denied that the ship's systems failure lasted as long as DiGiorgio said. The Yorktown was dead in the water for about two hours and 45 minutes, fleet officials said, and did not have to be towed in."
"The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its computers were unable to divide by the number zero, the memo said. The Yorktown's Standard Monitoring Control System administrator entered zero into the data field for the Remote Data Base Manager program. That caused the database to overflow and crash all LAN consoles and miniature remote terminal units, the memo said."
"The Navy reduced the Yorktown crew by 10 percent and saved more than $2.8 million a year using the computers. The ship uses dual 200-MHz Pentium Pros from Intergraph Corp. of Huntsville, Ala. The PCs and server run NT 4.0 over a high-speed, fiber-optic LAN."
That was 1997-98
The Navy actually has a long history of using Apple computers for image processing on submarines going back to the closely held Cluster Knave project. I knew that there were efforts underway to port this application to the TAC-3 based platform running xwindows back in the early 90's but since I have lost contact with that program. Apparently, they are still using it but in a Linux based environment. Even so, the Xserves are ideal for this project in that they are compact, require very little energy to run comparatively and they have Altivec which can be very useful for vector based calculations.
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As you can imagine, there are a lot of details about this program that are not publicly releaseable, even if they aren't classified. You can find about more about ARCI via Google, but start with this PDF; it's mostly marketing pitch, but it does describe what we're doing.
I can offer some insights into the factors driving this particular decision:
You have to keep in mind the physical environment of a submarine: there isn't a lot of space on a boat for active equipment, much less spares. Redundancy is a must, as is reliability.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
And yes heat is of a concern when you dont want to have your computer making too much noise cooling it's self(both vibrations and soundcan be transmitted outside of the hull.)
Its a very tricky thing but the g4's low power consumption makes it a pretty cool chip compared to a P4
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