Virtual Grid Supercomputer Goes (Partly) Online

hotsauce writes "The BBC is reporting that CERN (the guys who invented the Web) are working on a virtual supercomputer called the Grid. The Grid taps computing power from 12 countries to process data from a new supercollider that will simulate parts of the Big Bang. Phase One of the Grid just went online."

Comments

Over-hyped

[TwistedSquare]

I have heard from some people involved in the grid that it is a triumph of PR over substance, and that it is not going to be as well-used and participated in as the press releases suggest...

Re:Over-hyped

[cperciva]

Sure, there are lots of languages in Europe. But do you really need to have half a dozen of them in a project which only has a hundred people?

Any company which was running a project like this would have picked one location, hired a bunch of people, and had them all working in the same building, speaking the same language. It's only because of EU politics -- the requirement that the EU Datagrid be a multinational consortium -- that there are so many languages and locations involved.

Re:Over-hyped

[Znork]

"Any company which was running a project like this would have picked one location, hired a bunch of people, and had them all working in the same building, speaking the same language."

And then tried to launch the grid project at multiple corporate sites, whereupon they discover the nice little problem that corporate politics and economics result in them not being able to run that project anywhere but at the site where the project was developed - your project, we're not contributing a cents worth of spare capacity, go buy your own machines.

If you want a project like this to have the faintest chance to succeed you get all the people who are expected to contribute anything out of their budget involved. Or you'll get sunk. Even in a corporation. And for a multinational, that means you have people with different native languages. This is usually not a problem in a multinational because the people involved in such projects usually have at least one language in common, and often more.

When will we do this ourselves?

[Max Romantschuk]

Distributed computing has been a long time coming. Sure, grids are cool, but when can we download a safe piece of software which to use for distributed calculations? When I'm not it need of doing stuff myself it would use my idle time for other people's calculations, and vice versa.

Sure it doesn't work for any type of calculation, but there's still a huge potential.

Distributed backups is another thing I'd like to have now, rather than tomorrow...

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[grid geek]

No, seti is a distributed application - 3 million instances of the same program. The grid is a distributed environment - an operating system if you like, which programmers can write their own applications to run on top of.

Like the OS for your desktop the Grid's middleware software deals with things like I/O, resource allocation, security etc.

So, seti@home could run on the grid, but is not a grid in its own right.

Re:When will we do this ourselves?

[AlecC]

One problem with this is the ability of some idiot to absorba an almost infinite amount of processing time if it is available. Like trying to find primes using the Sieve of Eratosthenes in a half-baked implementation across the whole net. The current difficulty of Grid computing means that people trying to do it a re serious about it and optimise their algorithms and test before launching across a million PCs. Make it easy, and peope will kaunce "while (1 == 0)" across all the PC in the world and wonder why it doesn't terminate.

What they do at CERN

[hkon]

Is it just me, or is referring to CERN as "the guys who invented the web" a bit like referring to Paul McCartney as "the guy from Wings"? To a lot of people, CERN is probably better known as "the guys who know more than anyone about particle physics".

Re:What they do at CERN

[AlecC]

Nasa wasted millions developing a zero-G ballpoint, whereas the Russians used pencils.

Urban Legend

Under-hyped

[pubjames]

I think one thing that distinguishes the USA from Europe (and in fact many other countries) is that, in the USA, you're really good at hyping stuff.

Over here in Europe we're crap at it, or rather, it's not seen as being so important - which I believe is a mistake.

I was once knew a marketing person at CERN who said that as they had invented the web, they were thinking of putting up some good web pages about it to let the world know what they had achieved. Later I found out that she had been told that it had been decided that it wasn't a priority and so no budget was allocated to it. So outside of techy fields most people in the world don't know that the web was invented in Europe. (Yes, I know the Internet network was an American invention).

This is true of many other achievements in Europe. For instance, everyone in the world knows lots about NASA and yet very little about the achievements of the European Space Agency, which has also done some really impressive things.

The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything. So, for instance, most people - Americans and non-Americans - think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America. Example - landing on the moon is seen as a purely American achievement but was actually significantly based on German work. Another example - Einstein was of course European but many people believe he was American.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not really criticising the USA, I'm actually criticising Europe for not promoting its achievements or those of its citizens. And of course one of the great things about the USA is that it has the money and drive to make things happen, which is why many projects initiated in other places end up taking off in the USA. But it is frustrating to meet Americans that believe that everything is invented in America.

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

Your response shows factual errors that just highlight what I am saying.

For instance, Einstein did nearly all his significant work and published most of his important papers whilst he was in Europe. He only fled to the US in around 1931, after he had published nearly all of his most significant work. And yet you seem to believe that Einstein and others like him "only achieved greatness because they fled to a land where they were allowed to develop their ideas." That's just rubbish, and your misunderstanding of Einsteins history just proves the point I am trying to make!

Re:Under-hyped

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are basically right. But I also think you have a different attitude toward immigration than we do. Einstein, Fermi, Von Braun, etc. became US citizens. In American eyes, that means that they were Americans, and no longer Europeans.

Although some issues (viz. undocumented immigrants) remain contentious, on the whole, people in the US recognize that the majority of our greatest accomplishments were done by immigrants, and we actually take a lot of pride in this.

(Although it should be noted that, in reality, Einstein made most of his discoveries while still in Europe.)

Also, a technical note: the US and USSR space programs made extensive use of German work. But the Germans in turn learned a lot from the experiments of Goddard in the US. (Unfortunately, in the US, Goddard was mostly ignored and sometimes ridiculed.)

Re:Under-hyped

[pubjames]

I think the responses I am getting to my post just demonstrate the point I am trying to make.

Einstein moved to America when he was 52. He had done nearly all his most important work by that time.

You say that this is because Americans have a different attitude to imigration. However, when Americans move abroad you don't seem to consider them no longer American.

I understand Madonna now lives in London. Should I now start referring to her as British? Are all her achievements now British ones? Is Gore Vidal Italian? He's been living there for years. Are his books now Italian ones?

You're just proving the point I am making.

Re:Under-hyped

[Aglassis]

You said: "(Of course then, you have to wonder why the US lags behind some other countries in science education....)"

You have to be really careful to say exactly what you mean when you make general statements like this. While it is true that US K-12 (or in particular 8-12) science education falls behind much of Europe, that is not true for college education or other types of education not normally considered (thinktanks, museums, libraries, private education, etc.,). You can't always compare one countries science education against another because they use different methods of implementation in their education process. For example, some countries give a test in about the 8th grade. Depending on the student's score, he or she is trained in vocational or scientific disciplines for the equivalent of his or her high school period. These vocational students are not tested for science when compared against other countries.

Re:Under-hyped

[tenchiken]

I think it's more that we like to take technology out to it's conclusion. For example you state:


I was once knew a marketing person at CERN who said that as they had invented the web, they were thinking of putting up some good web pages about it to let the world know what they had achieved. Later I found out that she had been told that it had been decided that it wasn't a priority and so no budget was allocated to it. So outside of techy fields most people in the world don't know that the web was invented in Europe. (Yes, I know the Internet network was an American invention).


Which a) Ignores all of the other search systems, and the original concept of hyperlinking which came from America and b) Fails to note the huge performance and capabilities difference between prototype and developed. You also state:


This is true of many other achievements in Europe. For instance, everyone in the world knows lots about NASA and yet very little about the achievements of the European Space Agency, which has also done some really impressive things.


Which is true, but has also been because NASA helps prop up every other space program in the world (including ESA, which would not have a single person in space save the US (and maybe the USSR).

It's one thing to go to the moon in the 1960's and 1970's. It's another to do it 2003. Which is a bigger acomplishment?


The USA also has a good way of claiming innovations as its own, by "Americanising" everything. So, for instance, most people - Americans and non-Americans - think that most technological innovation during the last century has been American, whereas in actual fact much of it was just "absorbed" by America. Example - landing on the moon is seen as a purely American achievement but was actually significantly based on German work. Another example - Einstein was of course European but many people believe he was American.


Which ignores the five largest technical innovations of the last centurt, the mass produced car and engine (Ford), Rockets (Goddard), Flight (Wrights), Internet (DARPA), Atomic Energy (Oppenheimer). Everyone one of thoose gentleman would have taken it as a insult to be called European rather then American.

They were American. Just like I am American. This is a fact that "American's get" and European's tend not to. We don't care where you were born, or what your past life was. If you agree with the constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address, you are American. Period.

The advantage of America is we have no problem allowing Immigration into our nation vs. the stagnant European attitude about such. We do 1+ million a year in legal immigration (with unfortunitly countless millions more in illegal... my point of view, if someone is willing to risk death to get into America, teach em english, and give them citizinship).

Einstein was American, because Europe would not take him.

Finally to compare landing on the moon with the V-2 rockets (while ignoring the fact that every german stated that their work was reallly Godddard's work) is a bit akin to comparing your CISCO 678 DSL router with a CISCO BFR. Same idea maybe, but the scale is completly different. Something that Bohr said stuck with me here. America, because of it's industrial base and technological experience was "the only nation" that could build the atomic bomb.

The Future For Technology

[locarecords.com]

I for one am excited by the potential for offloading complex calculations from my machine to online electricity grid like computing power that frees my lonely machine to be more responsive to the things I want it to do. And leave the slow boring lone-processor killing stuff to another.

This would mean that silly frivilous things like email apps etc would literally jump to attention regardless as to the size of the file I am working on, rather than as now everything slowly to treacle...

Question is paying for it. It would have to be cheap, built into the operating system and require fast broadband to transfer the data to the servers... Few year yet probably...