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Virginia Tech Upgrade: PowerMac G5 to Xserve G5
An anonymous reader writes "Virginia Tech officially announced that they will be migrating their G5 Supercomputer from PowerMac G5s to Xserves.
According to the article, the Xserve G5s will reduce power consumption, heat production and decrease the system size by a factor of three. The pricing of the upgrade is still being determined, and according to Srinidhi Varadarajan, they are working on getting "very good homes" for the PowerMac G5s which will be replaced."
*looks under desk*.. I'm sure I could find room for, oooh... a couple of hundred..
Does anyone know what the university got in return for allowing Apple to film the installation and staff for the Xserve promotional videos? A reduced price upgrade may have been part of the initial agreement
they are working on getting "very good homes" for the PowerMac G5s which will be replaced.
Can EBay be slashdotted? I guess we'll find out now!
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Is it like adopt a G5 day down at VT? Is there a background check or can I just pick up my tower and beat it to death once I walk outside with it?
To adopt one of those adorable little...
Heh.
Screw it, just gimme a G5!
Shinma
When it was first rumored that VT might replace its G5 boxes with Xserves, a friend of mine shared the idea that the pulled machines should be resold to the public, with some indication that they had been part of the cluster, perhaps a plaque or laser engraving noting that they had been included in the VT supercomputer. I bet those things would be bid up sky-high on eBay!
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why not have a few more Xserves, I mean they already have the infrastructure for that much heat/power/room, so why don't they supersize the Big Mac?
Bob
Now for all those people who droned on and on about how foolish VTech were for not getting stripped down boxes, here's the reason.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
would be to reward some VT Computer Science majors.
get an A in any programming class, take home a G5.
Bob
Imagine a beowulf cluster of th-- oh wait. DAMNIT!
--
The last digit of pi is four.
They've already covered their costs in publicity and research. Getting on the Top500.org and being ranked #3 is huge. Well worth the $5 million they spent.
when i heard about this the first thing i thought was "they just it up and running and now they are doing an upgrade?" i'm not in the cluster world does this happen often? does anyone else think that it came too soon? Or is apple giving them another deep discount to keep an Mac based computer #3 on the supercomputer chart?
I would like to let V. Tech know that I am more than willing to accept some of those poor, forgotten G5's into my loving home.
There, they can spend the day happily puttering away in my new (soon-to-be) G5 cluster, working merrily at finding ways to improve the human condition, advancing understanding of the universal truths, and produce superior pr0n...
Whew! This water sure is cold!
Not a G5 expert here...
I wonder if there is a processing gain acievable by doing this or of the motivation is purely power dissipation and space. If so, at the end of the day it seems like the power bill delta over the usable life of the computer wouldn't make the expense of the upgrade worthwhile (especially considering VT has an on campus power plant of their own). Wouldn't it make more sense to wait around for the 'next best thing' instead of the same thing in a different package? If it ain't broke, why fix it?
But I guess they want a super-computer the football team can be proud of...
Trust me, the university is not letting anything out of their hands that can't be obsoleted first. It's a state school so they have a pecking order. My first bet is a large majority ends up at the Empo' followed by professors (who are also looking to build a smaller farm), faculty, staff, other state schools, and if we are so fortunate (and this is really a long shot) you can scoop one auctioned[PURCH].
How is this Insightful? The Lead in stated the reasons as a less power consumption, less room needed, and less heat produced. Last I checked trying to save money on Electricity, Cooling and Floor space was simple good use of students tuition dollars.
Waste what? From what I read they're just trading them in and Apple will sell them as used/refurbished units. They're probably getting a huge discount for the trade in of 4 month old machines, if they're paying anything at all. This is just a boost for Apple's marketing department to have a G5 cluster in one of the top supercomputer spots. What I never understood is why someone like IBM didn't come along and cluster 10,000 dual P4 nodes together for fun to get on the top spot. I'm sure they have the inventory to write that off.
Or a supercomputer that the football team can spell. "G5" is shorter than "Pentium".
--- Ban humanity.
"No offense, but after running thermal dynamics equations, your, how do you call it, 'leet' Photoshops skills are somewhat beneath me. I'm looking for something that will stretch my thinking, not bore me to tears. I don't think I'm right for you. Perhaps a Blueberry iMac would be more your speed. Yes, a beige G3 with 64 megs of ram and os 8.1 should handle your AOL sessions just fine. I'll continue my search. Thanks for your time."
I wonder if the lower power PowerPC 970FX used in the Xserve has superior performance to the ordinary 970 used in the PowerMac G5...
;-)
It would also be interesting to know if the 970FX has suitable energy saving modes and a low enough power consumption to be used in a G5 PowerBook
It may seem like a waste to upgrade a system only four months old, but the reduced power consumption will save some dollars in the long term. By ditching the towers, they also save a boatload of space...
Where they can use some some of that extra money to purchase more nodes...
To put in all that extra space...
How many more nodes would it take to surpass number 2 on the list? Or possibly give number 1 a run for its money?
I think VT may be on to something here.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
They can toss them about the network and use them as a distributed compile/render/$distributed_task farm.
Absolutely an impressive school. 10 years ago, they were a joke. Now they built a national reputation via their football team, so people have heard of them, and projects like this put them on the map. When I looked at schools, they never entered the equation. If I was looking at engineering schools today, I'm sure that I would end up applying there.
This is a school with great self promotion and is going to go places. Unlike places like MIT, they don't sit on their Laurels, they are exploding.
I expect that in 20 years, they'll be considered one of the elite engineering schools. Kinda neat to have your college degree appreciate in value because the school gets better. I can't imagine that you don't get a decent engineering education at any engineering focused school, and this research project is a brilliant PR stunt.
Alex
Some people are like "Why would they upgrade from dual 2 Ghz G5 desktops, to dual 2 Ghz G5 rackmount servers??"
They won't be dual 2 Ghz G5 rackmount servers.. VTech is going to do the same thing they did when the G5's were released.. get first dibs on new inventory as soon as the new rackmount servers are released - the new 2.3Ghz rackmount servers.
Apple knows what's in it's product pipeline, and I guarantee you that they are in talks with Virginia Tech about offering their new xserves that are *yet* to be announced. You honestly think that Virgina Tech had no idea about the nee G5's prior to Steve Job's and his keynote? They are planning on upgrading their supercomputer, and they are going to be making it FASTER, and Cooler (bad pun.. I know)
Apple's marketing line is going to be: "Look, Look Not only is the 3rd fastest computer on earth powered by our G5's, but it also is run on our new XServes.. You need mission critical hardware? No problem. We build supercomputers!"
-Buddha wears grass shoes
I mean really, for a community that mothballs GFX 5900's because the 5950s came out...do we have to ask?
This was *more* than worth it for Virginia Tech, academically, scientifically, and economically.
They spent $5M to instantly catapult themselves to the forefront of high performance computing, which was successful. Now they're replacing the entire cluster with ECC on the cheap, and will be doing real work with it in no time. This is a coup for VT, plain and simple. No one will be #3 again on the Top 500 list for anything close to $5M anytime in the foreseeable future. (The Top 10 will soon be populated with even more $100M+ clusters.) Virginia Tech's gamble will pay off many more times over for Virginia Tech, the people of Virginia, and the federal taxpayers who helped pay for it. As you claim to be a professor (which I doubt), it surprises me that you're too dense to realize that. Remind me to steer clear of your "classes".
They became the #3 most powerful supercomputer site in the world, #2 in the US, and #1 in education - and the first academic site to break 10Tflops - for a pittance, and in accordance with all rules set forth by the Top 500 organization - and now can attract much more grant money to do even more research and become an even bigger contributor, instead of taking years and millions more dollars to do it.
The Top 500 list has always been about hype! Wake up! Bravo to Virginia Tech. The only "pity" here is that you're so ignorant and shortsighted.
What I never understood is why someone like IBM didn't come along and cluster 10,000 dual P4 nodes together for fun to get on the top spot. I'm sure they have the inventory to write that off.
That would be ASCI White, which is currently #8 on the top 500. It's an 8192-cpu Power3 machine, and they didn't do it just for fun. It was #1 on the top 500 in Nov 2000.
Also, #10 on the top 500 is a 1920-node IBM Xeon 2.4Ghz cluster, but why should IBM use Intel processors when they make their own?
Mozilla
They worked out how much it costs to build a top-three supercomputer from commodity parts at very low cost, while simultaneously getting a massive amount of publicity.
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
...how loud the Xserves are compared to the G5's? I can't imagine the decibels in a room full of them. One thing they don't mention in the article, and possibly another reason to upgrade to the Xserves, is the use of the Server Manager software. This software doesn't work on the PowerMac G5's because it doesn't have the sensors built in that the Xserves do. Not being that keen on cluster arrangements, I wonder if they have another product in place now that does the same thing with the PowerMacs?
Money not found! A)bort, R)etry, D)eclare Bankruptcy
It looks as if our hopes are dashed. Hi, That statement on Reuters should have read "found new homes" not "finding" Regards, Srinidhi Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan Director, Terascale Computing Facility Virginia Tech -----Original Message----- To: Srinidhi Varadarajan Subject: Request for information regarding liquidation of the G5's Greetings Mr. Varadarajan, I am sure my email is only one of a slew of letters to grace your inbox following the press release (http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040126/tech_virginiatech_ apple_1.html). I
sincerely hope this letter is no intrusion. I am writing in hopes of
obtaining enough information to keep up to speed with VT's liquidation
of System X. Hopefully, there will be an opportunity for myself and
others like me to finally purchase a G5 without breaking the bank!
Any leads you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Dylan Baxter
Computers are like air conditioners - they stop working properly if you
open Windows.
You'd think that someone could have predicted this back when the Big Mac was first being hyped. I just overestimated the longevity by a month. My bad.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that Steve Job's himself had already said this in his Macworld Keynote. An excerpt from someone's notes:
Jobs talks about the G5 processor and Virginia Tech SuperComputer, who wanted "the first" 1,100 dual-2GHz Power Mac G5s. ("We pissed off a few people" getting them the first ones.") Cost them only $5.2 million and sending ripples through Supercomputer world. Jobs shows Virginia Tech Supercomputer video. It uses Infiniband networking; it took less than 3 weeks to assemble. Now in the top 3 Supercomputers. First academic machine to break the 10 teraflop barrier. The entire system runs on Mac OS X. Jobs says he expects to see a few more [Supercomputers] popping up hear and there
So VT is probably going to be THE FIRST to recieve G5 Xserve's.
Gorkman
The article says the units are 1.75" in height. (Apple says 1U - same thing). That is the same height as the Dell's 1U units (1.67" according to Dell's site).
More servers in a smaller space has a lot of economic advantages, but have you ever tried to unplug anything in the middle of a rack stacked full of 1U servers? My hands don't fit. It takes about half an hour to finagle something in or out. The real reason our jobs are going over seas isn't because labor is cheaper. It's because they need the small hands of 3rd world children to do cable management.
XServe has it, G5 doesn't.
Space is finite, so reducing your space needs by 2/3rds and reducing your expensive air-conditioning budget by some amount is actually a huge argument in favor of upgrading. The Xserves are cheaper cycle for cycle than the Power Mac G5s, too.
The other issue: with 2/3rds of your space free, you can wait for faster G5s to appear and slot those in with very small amounts of disruption. Or a grant comes through for a $1,000,000 for more computers -- boom, you're done. No lengthy process of finding more space, spending more to build out a/c, etc.
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
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For those who keep wondering aloud if they'll be able to improve their ranking, due to ECC, 2.3 GHz G5s, etc...
#3: VA Tech: 10.28 TFlops
#2: Los Alamos: 13.88 TFlops
#1: EarthL 35.86 TFlops
So, even if they spent 3x as much and filled up the now 2/3 empty room *and* scaled linearly (which they won't, won't, and definitely won't), they *still* wouldn't reach #1. #2, however, might be within reach, if they go to 2.3GHz and the ECC is a huge help.
Now that they more or less know where they'll wind up and there's no point in being secretive, I'd love to see them show what one box does on its own, then 2, then 5, then 10, then 50, then 100, then 200, 500, and finally 1100.
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Unbelievable waste of a nice computer.
I've criticized the whole idea before, especially the hype around it, when I can't see any big new ideas happening.
Statements like The price of the upgrade has not yet settled on, but Varadarajan said it would be minimal compared to the cost of building a new supercomputer from scratch are just ridiculous, since why would you need to build a new multi-million supercomputer from scratch if you have never even used your brand-new "old" one? That's like saying "tearing down our just-completed new villa and building the new house another way will save us so much more compared to building the same one again the same way!"
As Pike (of UNIX fame) and -- more recently -- Jobbs have noted, there's not a lot of innovation going on anymore.
Having said this the Xserves are very nice designs, so if anywhere, the cup for cool ideas goes to industry (Apple's engineers), not academia (Virginia Tech) -- also in the second round.
Here's my proposal: Why don't the guy at VTech not build a new user interface that goes beyond the useful, but aged desktop metaphor that the Mac introduced to the masses twenty years ago? Or how about some serious study of automatic load balancing on the "old" supercomputer? They might "save even more" money by taking some time to learn from mistakes in the first round before diving blindly into the next generation of their Uber-Mac project.
(Sorry for the rant, but it seems such a waste of resources when not too far away people don't even have their jobs anymore.)
By the "guy in charge," I take it you mean Sirhindi Varadarajan. He has stated that he never used a Mac before VT bought this cluster, so your charge of his being an Apple zealot is false. Shame you can't just admit that the platform chosen was the best choice at the time, has worked out brilliantly, has changed opinions about Apple and the Mac, and is only going to get better on Xserves.
By blowing it off as Apple zealotry, you totally discount just how good the PowerPC 970 and the G5 architecture are.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Macintosh...
Will they even be selling them?
I don't know anything about VT, but how many computer labs could benefit from new G5's?
How about other departments? Do they have a need/use for them? If nothing else, put them on faculty desktops.
Then there's always the possibility of reselling them to the current students.
Because the next list in June 2004, and the one after it, and the one after that, will include many new very, very expensive clusters (some $100M+) with performance far, far beyond 10Tflops.
l ist_for_CPU.gif
So, yes, someone can build a 1101-G5 cluster right now, and be faster than VT's cluster. But they won't be on any list, and they definitely won't be anywhere near #3 on the next Top 500 list. And neither will VT.
That's why the whole VT #3 thing is the coup that it is: the timing was *perfect* for them to take the #3 spot for a mere $5.2M. The PR and grants they'll get *because of* that are more than worth it. That will never happen again for anywhere near that small an amount of money anytime soon.
See some of the new clusters that will be in the Top 10 on the next list:
http://www.bayarea.net/~kins/AboutMe/GIFs/TOP500_
As has been pointed out countless times again, the cost was NOT a "mere" $5M. Their total hardware cost was ~$7M ($5.3M for the computers and memory, another $1.7M for the infiniband hardware), there was another $1M to upgrade an existing building.
"The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics, and cables is $5.2M." (Source: http://don.cc.vt.edu/tcfslides.pdf)
That $5.2M INCLUDED the Infiniband cards, switches, and cabling.
"The total cost of the asset, including systems, memory, storage, primary and secondary communications fabrics and cables is $5.2mil. Facilities upgrade was $2mil. 1mil for the upgrades, 1mil for the UPS and generators." (Source: Interview with Dr. Varadarajan)
There was then an additional $1M for "facilities upgrades", and $1M for power infrastructure.
They also had the benefit of free labour (millions of Mac zealots)
Huh? Millions of "zealots", eh?
Even if we GROSSLY overestimate labor, let's say a MILLION DOLLARS, the total cost is still $8M. So screw the free labor argument: even if they paid a MILLION DOLLARS to put it together (which is a huge, gross exaggeration), they're still much, much cheaper than anything close. Also, ANY academic institution has this same benefit.
and have not factored in the cost of power and cooling (at 2MW total power and cooling, this is a pretty significant expense, about $5,000 a day) or the support costs.
Sorry. Other clusters don't include power in their capital costs. And cooling *is* equipment included in the VT cluster. Ongoing support costs are NOT included in the costs of any of the other Top 500 clusters. The only thing different about the VT cluster was that the $5.2M figure didn't include some of the infrastructure costs other clusters have. But even the ASCI clusters are asset + infrastructure only, and do NOT include buildings, energy, or support costs. So, sorry again. And even at $7M + our imaginary labor, it's still ridiculously cheaper.
Even NCSA's new Tungsten cluster is $12M for the ASSET ALONE. That does not include building, support, infrastructure upgrades, or anything. Just the computer. And Dell installed it for free. So are they "PC zealots", since it was free labor?
I think you may have your facts wrong...
Apple announced the G5 base Xserve systems only a couple of weeks ago and they top out at 2GHz currently using a 90nm version of the PPC 970. They have not announced any systems based on G5s with higher clock speeds.
Can you point to documentation about systems using 2.3+ GHz G5s (PPC970/fx etc.) and when those will be available and when VTech / public will be getting them?
The main reason, so far stated, that they are swapping the systems is for space saving and power savings (electrical and cooling) thanks to the 90nm G5s being used.
They should consider reselling them to the students who volunteered their time to help set up the Supercluster. I know they already got free pizza, but a discounted G5 would probably be extremely appreciated by most of them.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein