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NASA Installs Linux Supercomputer
unassimilatible writes: "Federal Computer Week reports that NASA plans to study the ocean's future with the help of the world's first supercomputer of its kind to run on the Linux operating system. The new supercomputer -- an SGI AltixT 3000 single-system image supercomputer -- has been installed at the space agency's Ames Research Center in California."
The article explicitly says they're using NUMA archeticture.
Obviously, it's running SCO's intellectual property. SGI doesn't really own NUMA, they only wrote it. Deep down, it's really a derivative of vi.
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SGI's Altix handles up to 64 processors on a Linux kernel using the patches they release as opensource. As SGI hacks away at their bigmem and numa patches, they'll be able to handle more and more processors. The plan is to eventually graft enough IRIX technology to support just as many processors on Altix as they do with MIPS processors in Origin with IRIX.
Even if you aren't a fan of Itanium2, Linux, or NUMA, these patches are bringing some nifty high-end tech to the free software arena.
Fluid dynamics and environmental studies are also part of NASA's research mission.
Don't know if this is what SGI is using, but the status of NUMA in the kernel and associated patches for it is shown here.
or the tv show "Seaquest DSV"?
the ocean seems to be a gateway to the stars...
SCO sues Nasa for using Linux.
Darl McBride stated yesturday, "Since Nasa is using Linux we now own the entire universe and are claiming our rightful ownership."
A 512 CPU and 1024 CPU IRIX system. The 512 one is referred to as the small one :)
Rus
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The SGI Altix 3000 is not quite a supercomputer. Our local university got the very first model for production use of the Altix 3000's successor, the Altix 3700, in last April or so, and it made it in the TOP 500 supercomputer list in last June, but it fell out of the current list. And the 3700 is even faster than the 3700, so what's so special about it?
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Nice to know that it is the fastest Linux supercomputer, but how does this compare to the other top-ranked supercomputers in the world?
Isn't using a supercomputer that has hundreds of very hot processors to simulate climatic change going to directly cause a change in the climet be ejecting large quantities of hot air?
... I have something of a soft-spot for SGI, and it's nice to see them still making high-profile sales - it'll do their government profile no end of good :-)
:-))
512 processors running a single image is pretty cool
Simon
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If I'm not mistaken, NASA *invented* the bewulf cluster. And it ran Linux then, too.
Clicky
The emperor is naked.
... as it has completed it's simulation of the ocean in order to predict it's future:
cold and wet.
The thing that is special about the NASA computer is that it is a single image system
I did parallel code development on Sun SMP boxes. Starting up jobs, seeing what was going on, killing zombies, debugging was all easier on one system than through different boxes you'd have to ssh over to see.
Even though I was using MPI and getting ready for a distributed memory architecture for the really big runs, the development was easier on the SMP box that showed a single system image.
I haven't used things like OpenMOSIX, and Don Becker, early pioneer of Linux ethernet drivers (not many other folks can claim a complete decade of experience with Linux networking), founded a company called Scyld that sells Linux clusters with single system image.
Sometimes it's convenient to see the whole box as if it were one, even though efficient programming dictates that you become aware of the different costs of data access (network, main memory, cache, disk). Practically speaking, developing and running parallel jobs is a higher user productivity proposition on a single system image.
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