Slashdot Mirror
New 640-Node Apple Xserve Cluster at UIUC
frostyboy writes "At the University of Illiois at Urbana-Champaign's Department of Computational Science and Engineering , a new high-performance computing cluster comprising 640 Dual G5 Xserves has completed benchmarking runs for the top500 list. The New Turing Cluster is a replacement for an old 208-node linux cluster. Preliminary results have it at about 4.6 teraflops, not too shabby. Slide Presentation and Photo Album"
The slide show shows that the only thing Linux about the cluster is the NFS server. Seems that OS X 10.3.5 nfs server maxes out at 50 clients.
Anyone know what sort of crazy discount they get? It must be pretty good PR for apple.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Small Mac? Perhaps the Double-Cheeseburger Mac?
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Oh, wait ... it can..
It's running OS X.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Read the slide presentation. On pg 9, it shows a picture of Mac OSX at the terminal and on pg 16 it lists OSX under the software. However, linux will still operate the NFS server because Apple's implementation of NFS server only allows fifty clients. I am not sure whether a XServe or an old computer from the previous cluster will run it.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Virgina Tech are claiming 12.25 teraflops for their 1100 xserves ...and Sony are claiming 1 teraflops for a single PS3, so if you believe the hype we'll all be able to outrank these guys at a lan-party in a year or so.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Are we forgetting the other supercomputer born in Urbana, Illinois?
Well, we didn't REALLY slashdot them. They simply went over the bandwidth quota.
However, linux will still operate the NFS server because Apple's implementation of NFS server only allows fifty clients.
This is interesting, because Solaris 10 would be the best choice for an NFS server (especially for a super-computer, where these things matter).
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Why no Xwindows Support for Emacs? /usr/local/bin, which should now be in the default path on all head nodes.
Mac OS X does not come with Xwindows, but it does come with emacs. So, by default, emacs is not built with Xwindows support. On Turing, we use xemacs for windowed, x-enabled emacs. You can find it in
Mac OS X does in fact come with Xwindows. It may be that the default version of emacs doesns't use it, but to say it's not there is simply wrong.
"Where people reply to people who haven't read the article"
/.ed.
Not reading the article is often due to the fact that the site that the article gets
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
does it run Linux
No, it runs UNIX.
<ducks!>
Forbidden
Available bandwidth quota for this filesystem has been exceeded. (/benoc/cluster/album/cluster album-Pages/Image0.html)
Please, try again later.
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Of course Slowaris 10 only runs on Opterons, and Sparcs. not PowerPC.
Advantage Linux. It runs on more platforms than you can remember.
Note x86 support is there but i wouldn't bet your hardware is supported completely. Between that and Sun's management telling the F/OSS community that the GPL developers don't matter they should get's lots of help.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Computer Science already has HAL as a cluster name. Having the new one be HAL would only confuse matters. Especially since HAL contains the old turing machines!
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
As much as i dislike the way suns managment acts and as much as i love to use linux and GPL code , he has a point that linux is still not on par with solaris for an nfs server of this magnitude . Its great to use F/OSS whenever we can and if linux handels the NFS well enough then sure use it , that does not change the fact (that in my experiance) solaris still has better handling of NFS.
other that that i agree with you
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
No, really. This should be almost powerful enough to run next years (cr)applications from Macrodobe.
Okay, seriously, it is impressive and another good illustration of the strengths of OSX over every horrible thing Apple called the Macintosh OS before they went over to the *nix base.
Oh yeah, that Star Wars t-shirt guy reminds me of what I looked like before I became older, grayer, and crustier. I'm so glad I stopped wearing shirts like that.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Slowaris
This name is long dead. People using it just look silly.
Also, the cost of a super-computer would accomodate a new Opteron server plus attached storage for NFS. Solaris 10's NFS implementation is the best in the industry, so why not use it? Various places, I've seen that Solaris 10 on a good 2-way server can easily saturate a gigabit network (meaning we need even faster networking to accomodate it).
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Well, they could just change the name slightly. You know, shift the letters one place in the alphabet....
;)
Of course, "GZK" is kinda hard to pronounce.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Spoke a bit too soon. It looks like they're already pushing 10Gbit for regular traffic and getting >200MB/sec on NFS.
-- Microsoft is the most expensive commodity operating system and office suite vendor in the marketplace.
Where did that Uber-Geek get that Star Wars T-Shirt? That guy is everything I picture when I think "nerd"
Anyone else getting sick of seeing all these stories with pictures of people assembling hundreds of Xserves into massive clusters?
Yeah, me neither.
Very few sites invented as much of the technology behind the web as they did.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Did they really 'invent' that much of the technology, or did they just implement the stuff invented at CERN?
It runs a branded UNIX?
When did MacOS 10 become a branded UNIX?
A quote from UIUC's site:
...
The cluster is shared by many users, so users should be respectful of each other and not monopolize resources...
I wonder how a user would manage to monopolise (sic. - I'm English) this little baby? Suggestions on the back of a postcard to Please Just Send Me One Of These Puppies, You Really Won't Miss It, PO Box 67,
I like the final slide.
Number of years when then entire cluster will be on your desktop: 15
"You like your Macintosh better than me, ... don't you Dave?"
:-)
Awesome ad
Your Windows PC is my other computer.
There are an increasing number of xserve clusters (http://www.macinchem.fsnet.co.uk/clusters.htm) why is this thought to be news worthy?
When did MacOS 10 become a branded UNIX?
They talk about the "UNIX based" OS X here, but don't actually say "OS X is a UNIX" per se.
Notice the lack of (C) and TM symbols on that page; isn't the word UNIX (C) the Open Group or whatever?
'Your brain is God.' -- Dr. Timothy Leary
OS X has an X in its name. Hey, it was a good enough reason for Xbox linux!
There are an increasing number of xserve clusters (http://www.macinchem.fsnet.co.uk/clusters.htm) why is this thought to be news worthy?
Perhaps because it replaces a Linux cluster? I haven't been following clusters but this is the first story where I recall Linux being replaced rather than Linux being adopted. Just a wild-ass guess.