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Linux Claims 4 of the Top 5 Supercomputer Spots
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that the November 2005 list of supercomputers has been published. Certainly something to note is that four of the top five use linux. Relatedly Multiflow writes "CNET is reporting that the number of supercomputers on the Top500 list which use Intel Itanium 2 microprocessors has fallen by almost 50% in the past year. While new higher performance Itanium chips are in the pipeline, the article reports that 64 bit Xeons and Opterons have increased their representation on Top500."
It may be a niche market but what a market it is. Rock on Linux!
These aren't off the shelf desktops.
What else would you expect them to run, windows ME?
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
While this will not do much to encourage the Unwashed Masses to embrace Linux, it certainly shows that Linux is a serious operating system suited to high-powered computing (or at least to hosting high-powered computing applications). I hope at least a few Fortune 500 CIOs will take notice.
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
Itanium already has no popularity whatsoever. If it can't even be successful in the supercomputer market, it can't succeed anywhere (last I looked, itanium had truly awe-inspiring FP but was slow at everything else.)
MY HEART WILL GO ONNNNNNNN!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They regularly publish how many beige boxes they have...
This sig is the express property of someone.
Does someone have a source that tells what OS these things run? I'm not seeing it in either article.
-- Moderation in all things, exceptions to all rules --
It makes perfect sense!!
With windows licenes costing about $300 for a couple of processors
With the total cost it would be more powerful to get linux and spend the left over increasing its performance.
Are these individual supercomputers? BlueGene comes with 131072 processors. Is this one (1) computer? Or 131072? If this is not one computer, then what does list tell us? That 131072 processors are faster than 1 processor?
(The top 6 are all from the US - followed by Japan and Europe.)
Where, exactly, did you get the information that these systems "run linux?"
In the Blue/Gene system, for example, the user front-end nodes use linux, but the OS for the system itself is very definitely NOT linux. So acting as if the system runs off a linux kernel is misleading, to say the very least!
We can rule out top500.org's web server...
I wouldn't want to be the tech guy trying to explain to the project admins that they would have to fork out 2.5 million dollars in license fee's to microsoft!... Let's also not forget that having the source code allows them to make changes to fit any particular harware or software methodology...
I'm sure Google is up there in terms of size, but this list is about performance. Google's computers do searching which is different in terms of processing requirements than raw number crunching like simulating a nuclear explosion. Google also probably wouldn't release any specifications anyway.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Apple's customers are like no others -- a rich blend of the most sociologically elite with those seeking elegant, simple computing. ... Unlike users of Intel/Windows computers, a significant portion of Apple's users are active, exploratory, avant-garde and early adopters . The activities they enjoy are unique in the the way that they more often incorporate rich media such as video and music as well as more active prosumer behavior than many more passive Windows [and Linux] users.
With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population [is] very attractive [intellectually as well as physically.]
Looking at this chart http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/l/Operating_Sy stem it actually appears that the OS ran on all system are:
- Linux: 72.2%
- Max OS: 1.0%
- Others 4.4%
- UNIX and Linux: everything else (~22%)
So it appears that Linux/UNIX* runs on about 95% of all super computers. The Story headline should have been:
Linux Claims Almost All Supercomputers Spots
What a scoop.
*Linux,UNIX, what's the difference really?
I swear I'm not trying to be a troll here, but am I the only one who is not really impressed by speed figures of multi-cpu systems? All you have to do to beat one is build an identical system but add a new processor or two, and all that takes is more money, not more invention or innovation.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
If you want a good explanation for the Itanic drop-off, look to the funding side of things. Follow the money, and all will be explained. Read a lot into this.
-Charlie
May I suggest the following paper:
J. E. Moreira, G. Almási, C. Archer, R. Bellofatto, P. Bergner, J. R. Brunheroto, M. Brutman, J. G. Castaños, P. G. Crumley, M. Gupta, T. Inglett, D. Lieber, D. Limpert, P. McCarthy, M. Megerian, M. Mendell, M. Mundy, D. Reed, R. K. Sahoo, A. Sanomiya, R. Shok, B. Smith, and G. G. Stewart: Blue Gene/L programming and operating environment.
Summary: It's not all Linux.
In fact, here is the most relevent passage from the article:
could withstand the mighty power of a Slashdotting!
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"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Does it run....
D'oh.
Image a Beowolf cluster...
D'oh.
DYWYPI?
...the one in the top 5 that is not running Linux is ASCI Purple, and it is running AIX. In case you haven't heard of it, AIX is a version of Unix developed by IBM:
IBM AIX 5L
Wikipedia: AIX Operating System
There's probably at least two camps of Linux users, based on their belief on whether marketshare is important or not. I'm somewhere in the middle.
On the one extreme is people who don't give a rat's ass if other people use it or not, or at least say this. On the other extreme is people who want global domination.
The problem with the first extreme is that for the whole open-source concept to work, you have to have a critical mass of users so that you have a large enough base of developers (which are a subset of the users) to keep the project working. Since most open-source software isn't owned by corporations (though some is certainly supported to some extent by them), open-source requires a large number of users to help work on the various projects.
The problem with the other extreme is that, in order to make Linux (as a group of distributions) a viable choice for all current Windows users, certain concessions and changes might have to be made, such as providing an API for closed-source drivers, removing features from the most popular software because it's "too flexible" for many users, standardizing on one desktop (GNOME or KDE), etc. Many powerful people in the open-source community don't like these things, and it's quite debatable whether they might end up hurting or destroying the open-source movement instead of helping it. (For instance, if it became easy to distribute closed-source drivers, then while Linux might become more popular initially, it might suffer from the same problem as Windows where companies release crappy drivers for their hardware, which makes Linux systems unreliable, and the companies refuse to help any open-source driver efforts).
Personally, I don't want Linux to become a commercialized, closed-source OS with a few open-source bits, but all the important stuff closed as some companies are trying to do. I also don't care if "Aunt Tillie" uses it, as long as she doesn't ask me for free support for her Windows computer, so I don't really care about it becoming the dominant OS. What I do want is for it to gain enough marketshare so that it's taken seriously, most hardware is supported on it (by open-source drivers), most worthwhile application software is ported to it, and that there's enough business in it that the dominant distros can make very polished versions without any major shortcomings like we still see today. In a nutshell, I want to be able to use Linux at work and at home to do anything I need to do (including buying and using the latest TurboTax or AutoCAD, for instance), without ever running into any major problems because I don't use Windows. If Linux reached 50% marketshare, this dream would probably be realized. The Windows users could happily live with their BSODs, activations, client-access licenses, high license prices, etc., and me and the other Linux users could happily ignore all that crap without being hindered because some web site is "optimized" for IE, TurboTax doesn't have a Linux version, ATI cards have crap drivers for Linux, etc.
Already, we're getting fairly close: certain types of hardware still have serious driver problems (video cards and WLAN adaptors), most lower-end commercial software does not have a Linux version (although much high-end software, such as that by MentorGraphics, Cadence, etc., does), and we still have serious problems with non-HTML-compliant websites. But on the plus side, we have a very reliable kernel and OS, we have very functional desktop environments (GNOME and KDE, and apps from one will work in the other), we have tons of free software to satisfy most of your needs both on the server and the desktop, and we have tons of drivers for most popular and also much older and obscure hardware. We're at the point now where you can get a recent Linux distro and install it, easily and quickly, on the hardware of your choice, and probably not run into any problems at all. You'll get tons of included software (web browsers, CD burners, word processors, etc.), and be able to do just about anything you reasonably need to do with a computer, unless perhaps your raison d'etre is to play all the latest 3D PC games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga
Am I the only one looking at the top 5 going "USA! USA! USA! USA!" with the Hulk Hogan theme song "I am a real American!" playing in my head? Probably. Think the Japanese aren't planning a new super-duper computer that will accurately predict the precise location Godzilla will destroy?
I'm just pointing out that there is a big "Linux on everything" movement to the grandparent. He has a misperception that I've seen before that Windows people are all about marketshare and Linux people are all about the OS. In truth there's both kinds on both sides.
However you can't dismiss the evangilists for Linux if for no other reason than that they work hard to be the voice for Linux most people hear and to push their viewpoint. Notice that my orignal post got modded offtopic and flamebait. It's in no way offtopic, it's a direct response to the post above it. It's not that the first post was on topic and mine isn't, it's that the Linux evangilists, of which there are many on this site, like what he had to say but not what I have to say.
At any rate I don't have a problem either way, if Linux does make a move for market dominance I think it'll have to change in ways that fix most of the problems I have with it, and the lack of software availability problem will be self solving. If Linux remains small, I'll use it when convenient and not otherwise. I just want to try and clear up the misconception that Linux users don't care about marketshare. SOME don't, some care about it more than almost anything.
I find it funny that the US's challenger to the Earth Simulator came out 3 years later, used almost twice as many processors, and only has a slight performance advantage.
6) Sandia National Laboratories
United States Red Storm Cray XT3, 2.0 GHz
Cray Inc. #Processors: 10880 Year: 2005 Rmax: 36190 Rpeak: 43520
7) The Earth Simulator Center
Japan Earth-Simulator
NEC #Processors: 5120 Year: 2002 Rmax: 35860 Rpeak: 40960
Well done linux, i yearn for the day when the headlines read
Female Linux Users Claim 4 of the Top 5 Supermodel Finalists
That link for AIX points to IBM's website.
Try here instead.
I hate it when you long-haired smellies pass off false information for truth.
Sincerely,
Anonymous
You jest, but Microsoft actually does have a horse in this race.
Breakfast served all day!
I was working at SGI in 1999 when they made their Itanium/Linux move. A lot of customers (and employees for that matter) would have liked SGI to port its version of Unix, Irix, to the Itanium. But that was just too expensive. Instead, SGI promised to continue selling the MIPS/Irix Origin line, in addition to the Linux/Itanium Altix line. So Irix is still alive — as a legacy system. If you check the Top 500 list you'll find several Altix systems but not a single Origin system.
If you look up how the top500 benchmark, and most of the others, slapping together a heap of boxes doesn't get you anything. To actually get a decent score on parallel DP linpack, or simulation codes used as benchmarks, you need a fast, very low latency interconnect between the nodes, excellent synchronization, and fast disk access.
Even the allegedly "off the shelf" systems contain an awful lot of not off the shelf hardware. Case in point would be PNNL's Itanium cluster http://www.emsl.pnl.gov/capabs/mscf.shtml/ (at 1000 or so nodes). At SC2003 I chatted with people I know from there, and they mentioned that they had four (4) Quadrics http://www.quadrics.com/ interconnect cards Per Node, plus extra switches, in order to get the bandwidth up high enough. Even a cheap cluster will add Myrinet (at about $1500/node when the switch is factored in), and start worrying about topology after the first few dozen nodes are installed.
There are clusters (basically networks of workstations), and then there are supercomputers.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Even if it was that simple, it is incredibly tough to create applications that can harness that power, especially since they work mostly from the ground up with no high level stuff to help them along. Can you imagine allocating memory and threads across 65,536 processors and who know how many gigabytes (terabytes?) of RAM? If so, can I have your autograph?
I am Spartacus
Linux is on 4 of the top 5 supercomputers is due to the fact that it is opensource, and can be modified to fit unusuall hardware. I cannot imagine the process one would have to go through to get changes to be made to the way a closed source OS will function on more than 1000 CPUs; all I know is that it is an inconvientient one. Opensource wins out because of the tremendous flexabilty it has to change rapidly.
"Microsoft really does make a fine user OS." err.. I'm not a maaaassive linux fanboy as I use Windows at home and work, and have only occasionally flirted with Linux.. but even though Windows is more dumbed down than Linux, there are still plenty of things in it that your average user wont just understand without you teaching them about it first. Most people, if Linux was the only system in the world, would be able to learn to use Linux fine. It's just that M$ is so pervasive that users are so used to it, and we all know that it's one of the worst, yet best marketed OSs ever (and I can say that truthfully without actually thinking of a system that is worse, having used AmigaOS and MacOS a lot in my younger days). I think that most normal people are becoming 'geekier' all the time anyway, eg learning to fileshare to swap mp3s etc, everyone uses email/the internet.. there must be a way to get a better option out there for people without necessarily losing functionality etc. Windows is slooooooowly becoming more reliable and usable anyway, and more OSS is being converted to it, so at least people can start to migrate to things like OpenOffice as a start to getting into Open Source. If people get used to things like FireFox, the GIMP and OO.org , then they're going to start finding Linux more familiar without even thinking about it. I know that's a small example, but the more stuff that is converted over, the easier it will be for someone to switch over to Linux in the end (and the same goes for porting good professional apps, such as CAD apps, over to Linux).
which is totally what she said
Note that I/O nodes and not "front-end" nodes. All the front-end machines (there are many) run Linux as well.
All the user-level stuff (the programming model, tools, compilers, etc) is standard Linux, too.
So, is it Linux?
[Disclaimer: I have worked on some system aspects of the beast, but this post is not sanctioned by BG/L team or IBM or LLNL. I am not disclosing anything proprietary here - all this is open info that can be found in many papers on the subject. Check out IBM Journal of R&D for a wealth of information.