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HP & Commodity Computing

Posted by Hemos on from the the-grid-network-cometh dept.

Handpaper writes "The BBC has a story about HPs SE3D lab's pilot scheme to provide raw rendering power for smaller studios and amateurs. A sample movie is available.. " Yes, the long fabled "grid computing" may arrive soon on a massive scale.

3 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Grid-Computing? by fembots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this considered grid computing (which enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of a wide variety of geographically distributed computational resources)? All processing seems to come from one source, more like lease-computing?

    One of the articles mentioned "All the animators are independently funded to make their films.", but none mentioned the cost to use 1 unit (however it's calculated) of the processing power. How do animators justify the expenses to sponsors?

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
  2. They have the power scotty by Ambient_Developer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Guys, many schools already have the PC power for grid computing, my school (university of minnesota) has over 20,000 PC's! Now how would you like to tap into that type of power? It is just a matter of PR, trends, and software. Most Pc's are just sitting idle anyway, why not use them? I just cannot speak for what type of power bill the school will be footing then ;-).

  3. Did anybody actually pay for this? by Animats · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It sounds like HP ran a free demo. But has anybody actually paid for their service?

    There are commercial render farm services running right now. Over 400 machines. 440 frames are rendering right now. Over 6 million frames sold. On line. Self service. VISA/MC accepted. The going rate is about $1/GHz/hour, before discounts.

    And they never mention "grid computing".