Virginia Tech Announces Supercomputer Plans

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Virginia Tech Announces Supercomputer Plans

Posted by pudge on Wednesday September 3, 2003 @06:57AM from the i-got-dibs-when-they-are-done-with-it dept.

CousinVinnie writes "Previously noted in this Slashdot story, the administration of Virginia Tech has announced they're puchasing 1100 G5's (another story) in hopes to build a top-10 supercomputer by October 1. Tech will be spending $5.2 million over five years on the project, which should help it pull in more research money." Maybe VT can use the new computers to beef up their web site.

11 of 419 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

This is quite cool but... by WinterSolstice · 2003-09-03 06:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

Does anyone know who else was considered for this contract? I'd love to see the arguments for the different platforms!

-WS

--
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
1. Re:This is quite cool but... by Kalak · 2003-09-03 07:06 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Dell and HP were considered, and Apple won based to a large degree on delivery date. There are more issues to computing than benchmarks, and in the issue of deliverability, Apple won. If you RTFA on the CT, they say it was on the speed and memory of the G5, but the geek grape vine, and hints from the Roanoke times article said availability to get it up in time to make the next top 500 comuter listing we big factors.
  
  Both Dell and HP have recently announced large clusters, so that may be why they were unable to deliver in time.
  
  --
  I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by .hack)
2. Re:This is quite cool but... by BWJones · 2003-09-03 07:16 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Does anyone know who else was considered for this contract? I'd love to see the arguments for the different platforms!
  
  Well, considering that the G5 has many of the architectural features of those $40k SGI Octanes that I purchased a few years ago, I would consider that pretty impressive. In short, Apple designed the G5 machines with completely independent busses, so that saturating say an I/O bus will not have any effect on the throughput of say memory to CPU. They are pretty impressive and I can see why many folks who are currently using the Octanes etc... would want new G5's.
  
  So, you have a UNIX box with true plug and play, 64-bit, nice GUI, full CLI access, Firewire, USB, REALLY nice archetecture etc...etc...etc... All that makes for a pretty convincing argument for clusters moving to the G5's
  
  --
  Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Anyone have any real specs? by anzha · 2003-09-03 07:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

So far we've seen that it's a cluster and what the building blocks are. What's the interconnect? What's the OS? What are the nodes using for a network filesystem? Are they at all? Is this intended for parallel jobs or for embarassingly parallel work?

--
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
1. Re:Anyone have any real specs? by mfago · 2003-09-03 07:15 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The interconnect is Infiniband by Mellanox. These things get 10Gbps bandwidth with 6us latency under MPI. Very decent stuff. There is more information at the site above.
  
  Note that 1100*$3000 = $3M. This doesn't include the 4GB RAM, but also doesn't include any volume discounts. Thus the interconnect may cost about $2M.
  
  Oh, and to the guy who said "4 Athlons + Myranet is the same price as one G5" -- can I have some of what you're smoking?
PowerMac G5s? by foo+fighter · 2003-09-03 07:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

Why aren't they waiting for the Xserve update? Rhetorical question, but still...

I haven't seen one, but it looks like the PowerMac G5s are about 4U wide. 1100 x 4U = 4400U / 42 per rack ~= 105 racks.

Not only is this going to take up an enormous amount of room, but the power and cooling requirements are going to be crazy as well. And they don't have rails so getting them in the racks, and working on them once in the rack, is going to be a PITA.

1100 G5 Xserves would need only about 25 racks. Many fewer UPSes and A/C units to power in each rack. Much easier to install and work on.

I know Apple is gung-ho about this validating their "Fastest PC Ever" claims. But it seems a little poorly thought out on the University's part even if they got a sweet up-front price on the machines. Remember: the system price is a small part of TCO.

--
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Argument for G5 here. by eddy · 2003-09-03 07:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'd love to see the arguments for the different platforms!

I think the argument for G5 came from here.

--
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Re:Apple ... supercomputer...? by alfredo · 2003-09-03 07:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

Apple has won other contracts by being able to act quickly. When the Postal Service needed to set up an intranet, everyone said one to two years. Apple using WebObjects was able to do it in 6 months. At the time the Postal Intranet was the largest in the world.

--
photosMy Photostream
The G5 really is all that. by GPS+Pilot · 2003-09-03 08:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Read why here.

--
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Rumors getting closer by Kalak · 2003-09-03 09:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

In talking to the person who is recruiting me to help lug the computers around when they arrive, the OS is to be OS X 10.2.7 on arrival, with plans to upgrade to Panther upon it's release. Straight out-of the box releases, with NetBoot planned to be used to distribute the images to each computer. This contradicts the rumors I've heard before, but is closer to a source who is on the planning team, who is too damn busy to talk to a luser like me.

Those who are possible volunteer recruits, there is an info session in Andrews ISB in the Corp. Research Center at 7:30 tonight and tomonrrow night (same presentation both nights). You *cannot* be on wage for VT to be elegible. I'm not sure if GAs count as this, since I'm not one, I didn't check.

--
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by .hack)
Re:Apple marketroid by BWJones · 2003-09-03 10:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Wonderful: three pointers to Apple's web site, pointing to pages with slick corporate "interviews". Do you actually work for Apple or are you just insanely zealous?

There are an awful lot of scientists using Macs for their research and work. I use them almost exclusively now after retiring my SGI's in favor of the OS X boxes and judging from the meetings I attend, I would say Macs have anywhere from 10-40% penetrance in science depending upon the subfield. For instance the last vision meeting I attended (ARVO, the big one for the vision research community), there were Powerbooks and iBooks everywhere. Probably a good 33% of the laptops I saw.

--
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.