A Look Inside Virginia Tech's New Super Computer

Mr Bob "The original" bougert brings us "...a video of the Virginia Tech super computer centre. How many people think that super computer centres like this, with their reasonably cheap cost should be created in more places? This video of the infamous super computer should be interesting to some and pretty to look for others." It views like an ad for Apple, but Virginia Tech has scored quite an achievement with this milestone, and this should serve as a decent introduction for those unfamiliar with the project.

Comments

build your own

[Guano_Jim]

build your own with xGrid!

Just a quick tip

[Ophidian P. Jones]

The project leader, Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan, will be speaking at a session entitled Building Virginia Tech's G5 Supercluster on Jan 28 at the upcoming O'Reilly Mac OS X conference.

He'll probably reveal some of the technical details, such as the version of Mac OS X used, at that session.

Also, according to a blog at O'Reilly:

Next year, all the little known details [about the cluster] will be revealed in a new book. By that time we'll know what the project means for supercomputing and for Apple.

Virginia Tech purchased those Macs at full price

[Aqua OS X]

Apple doesn't place a giant markup on its products. They put a lot of money into product and industrial design. Therefore, Apple computer's cost more.

Virginia Tech did not get a discount on those machines. They purchased 1100 Dual 2ghz G5s at full price and spent around 3.5 million dollars on those machines. And other 1.5 to 2 million was spent on networking hardware, software, racks, etc.

Furthermore. You don't have to buy individual licenses for OS X. OS X server comes with an unlimited client license and you can put it on as many computers as you please. Or, you can decide to use OS X (client), and every new Mac comes with that for free anyway. There are also no serial number or license activation annoyances involved with OS X.