Cell-based Server Blade Demonstrated

slashflood writes "Only a few clients in a hotel room near Los Angeles had the chance to see the first Cell based server blade running Linux 2.6.11. 'We demonstrated the prototype to show that Cell continues to mature. The product is expected to have several times higher performance compared to conventional servers,' said an IBM engineer."

Comments

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

The Cell is just a PPC with 8 little miniprocessors tacked on. The miniprocessors have explicit control over and direct access to the contents of their own cache, but can only access data in awkward ways; and are super-optimized for vector/SIMD instructions and floating point operations, but are not so good at algorithmic or complex flow operations.

The Cell's bonus processors are absolutely great for DSP and multimedia apps, such as that we see in the Cell.

But, they are going to be at a strict disadvantage in data retrieval and pushing operations-- which is, incidentally, exactly what most servers, such as a file, web or database server, need to be best at!

What kind of servers *ARE* these??

Re:I don't get it

[chill]

Unless you buy into the whole "utility computing" paradigm, like IBM does. In that case, servers are going to be doing more than just handing up files and indexing databases.

Using a two-tier or three-tier approach to client/server architecture, with something like a full-duplex GigE connection to fat, diskless clients and you have some real potential.

A fat client (512+ Mb RAM, 1 CELL processor) that can use the backend for the more heavy-lifting tasks would be a fantastic setup for a lot of businesses.

-Charles

Re:I don't get it

[TheKidWho]

If you're running a word processor, a 3.2ghz processor is a bit useless too don't you think?

Re:I don't get it

[chill]

Yeah, but most "normal" apps like e-mail, word processing, web browsing, etc. are more than handled by the base processor. No, you don't get any help by the SIMD but you don't need it.

When you move to things like editing audio & video, print rasterizing, hi-res photo deforms and filters, then it'll kick in.

Think of what this sort of processing will do to GIMP/Photoshop filter speed... Or DVD/music ripping/encoding/decoding... Or audio mixing...

correct me if i'm wrong....

[Lehk228]

Wast the benefit with Cell supposed to be that the programmable DSP's worked somewhat like pixel shaders except useful for all kinds of complex serial data so that operations on serial data could be massively improved, which does not seem to me like it would be a major help in a server, unless it is running a specialized app that just happens to be on a server for data access rather than using the Cell to speed up web servers etc.

Re:correct me if i'm wrong....

[NovaX]

I think its because web servers have thread pools, so a cell processor could handle many of these light-weight threads simultaniously. This makes it perfect for a blade server.

Sun's Niagara is aimed at this market, where the work is of great quanitity, not huge number crunching. This could mean searching, web page serving, and streaming media. So if you need to handle thousands of requests, this type of processor is ideal. Of course we won't truly know until one of these massively multicore beasts is out in the wild and can be tested in a realistic scenario.

! Graphics only

[theid0]

I've been trying to ignore everybody's outspoken assumptions about the Cell being a graphics chip which can't do general processing for a desktop computer. The fact is that it's rightly a multi-core chip with loads of vector processing capacity. It might not be as fast on a single-threaded task, but the software world is going to adapt quickly for this type of setup because it's where the hardware is going. No semiconductor lab can (cost) effectively compete in a megahertz race anymore, so more power = more transistors (more cores).

Server programs are ahead of the curve at this point because they've had multiple CPUs in abundance for a long time. However, even today it doesn't make sense for games like Doom III to avoid taking advantage of this hardware when possible (for instance, the G4/G5 systems have had dual processors for YEARS but Id won't use them properly). For petessake, calculate audio on one processor and AI on the other...

Re:OS X on Cell?

[nokiator]

There are several contexts which can lead to Cell processor being used in future Apple platforms:

• As a media co-processor in next generation PowerMacs, and potentially even high end iMacs, similar to "AV" badged Macs from a few years back. Cell can work as a pretty good general purpose media co-processor to offload video encode/decode operations from the main processor(s). Even the current high end dual processor PowerMacs are being challenged when decoding HD H.264. A co-processor that can enable real-time H.264 encoding would make a big impact on the user perception.
• As a physics modelling co-processor for Macs to accelerate animation and games. This is really what the Cell processor is designed for in the first place, and there is likely to be plenty of libraries/engines written for PS3. This will go a long way to eliminate the existing perception that Macs are inferior game machines. The same capabilities can be used by professionals for 3D animation work.
• As the core of a home media center that can encode/decode/store/stream video/audio. If the Cell can fit the thermal and cost constraints of a game console, it would also be a good fit for a next generation media center.