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First 96-Node Desktop Cluster Ships
Panaphonix writes "The Register reports that Orion Multisystems is shipping the first 96-node desktop cluster. 'With the new, larger system, customers get pretty much the most powerful computer around that can plug into a standard electrical socket.' According to the spec sheet, the DS-96 runs Fedora Core 2 and gets 110 GFlops sustained, 230 GFlops peak."
Do you think it will go over well?
No, it runs an inferior OS. I can't remember what it's called.
$100,000/96 = ~$1,000.
Not a bad deal.
paintball
.. Computing?
I mean, does Blender run on it at least? Can I do anything interesting from an 'immediate-personal' perspective with 96 nodes, and I don't just mean run Quake, or fire up "make -j 96" and such things..
What sort of interesting modelling software is around? Could I use it to design stuff on a personal, non-hard-core science perspective? What are the practical uses for personal cluster computing?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Merrimac 2 terraflop workstation for $20,000
General CPU's just don't have the punch that special purpose or Fpga processors do.
I know this thing is nice because of the power requirements and the fact that you don't need a dedicated server room to store it, but for $100,000, you can get Microway to build you a pimptacular cluster with Dual-Opteron nodes, high-speed memory and a phat interconnect with either myrinet or infiniband. You will get a lot more work done for the same price.
You forgot a couple of things:
* HVAC costs
* Realestate costs
Remember, this is a deskside cluster. Try that with your dual-opteron cluster. And try adding up all the costs.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
He's also forgotten about hiring an extra 2 guys at least to maintain the extra machines. A selling point of this box will be that "it just works". Pay for a support contract and wammo, you've got a cheap low maintainence cluster. For people working on top-secret stuff (who else needs clusters? ;-), hiring people is a risk and the vetting process is expensive.
I gotta say.. I'm a tad suspicious here.. there seems to be a lot of marketing flash (no pun intended) and scarce details.
What kind of CPUs are we talking about ? I'm assuming we're talking non-shared memory here, and therefore nodes that "retain" their own identies. But then isnt each cpu running it's own kernal ? That is.. This ISNT SMP , right ?
I think the details could be a lot clearer here. The lack of tech specs or simple explinations, and excessive use of buisness speak "Efficiency" "unprecendented power" etc. makes me a tad nervous.
General purpose processors have *WAY* more punch. Especially punch per dollar, as FPGAs are fairly expensive.
They're just general purpose, whether they be scalar (CPU) or vector (GPU), so an FPGA that is specifically optimized for a specific problem will kick the general purpose processor's butt - in that specific problem.
But try running Quake III on an FPGA - it will be killed by the CPU in processing and killed by the GPU in graphics. Assuming you can even cram everything you need to be a CPU or GPU into the limited real estate of the FPGA in the first place.
paintball
>When building cluster of stock PCs it should not be more then $500/PC.
What are you talking about?
The now (in)famous Apple cluster cost them about 5 million for 1,100 nodes or $5K/node.
http://radio.weblogs.com/0112083/G5cluster.html
And that was supposed to be a good deal.
The vetting process isn't just expensive, it's time consuming too. I don't know about the States, but here in the UK getting security cleared (to "normal" level, I forget the correct term) takes about 3 months. That's not 3 months of filling in forms, of course, but it is three months during which the person can't work on the project while you wait.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Space (e.g.real estate) and energy(electricity) is a premium in places such as Japan. Could be interesting to see how sales develop in such places.
You don't need two extra guys. I manage 5 clusters myself on a regular basis. Granted, it would be a hell of a lot of work if I couldn't enlist the help of a few people every once in a while, but for the most part, its a one man job. As well, to the poster claiming that I didn't take into account the cost of storage, I know this thing is nice because of the power requirements and the fact that you don't need a dedicated server room to store it, I'm fairly sure that I roughly addressed that. BTW, we need clusters and none of our researchers has top secret clearance ;-P
How about "plugs into a single 110 volt US outlet". This thing draws 1500 watts PEAK. That's about 14 amps for the math challenged or well under the recommended max for a 20-amp circuit from your household panel (think coffee maker on steroids). Let's try your barebones system approach and let's say you tweak it to use 50 watts per system (good luck). That's 50 watts per system multiplied by roughly 100 systems => 5Kwatts or 3+ times the power consumption. PLUS as an added bonus you get 96 cases, external cabling, at least 96 fans, a dozen power strips, and assorted other toys to trip over. Oh yeah and a few weeks of setup, integration, burn in, and testing.