Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Debian Cluster Replaces Supercomputer For Weather Forecasting

Posted by Soulskill on from the when-it-rains-it-pours dept.

wazza brings us a story about the Philippine government's weather service (PAGASA), which has recently used an eight-PC Debian cluster to replace an SGI supercomputer. The system processes data from local sources and the Global Telecommunication System, and it has reduced monthly operational costs by a factor of 20. Quoting: "'We tried several Linux flavours, including Red Hat, Mandrake, Fedora etc,' said Alan Pineda, head of ICT and flood forecasting at PAGASA. 'It doesn't make a dent in our budget; it's very negligible.' Pineda said PAGASA also wanted to implement a system which is very scalable. All of the equipment used for PICWIN's data gathering comes off-the-shelf, including laptops and mobile phones to transmit weather data such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, cloud formation and atmospheric pressure from field stations via SMS into PAGASA's central database."

8 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Re:hmm by Lehk228 · · Score: 4, Funny

    that would be HURD

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  2. Where is... by darekana · · Score: 4, Funny

    I tried:
    apt-get -f -y install gweather
    But it failed with something about "ldconfig: /lib/libearthquake-2.3.so.0 is not a symbolic link"

    Is libearthquake in unstable?

    --
    Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
    1. Re:Where is... by palegray.net · · Score: 5, Funny

      You've got it all wrong; you should be using built-in tools like these:

      more weather - For when you need a new update.

      less weather - Got too much weather? Reduce it!

      vi weather - When you want to change the weather.

      emacs weather - When you want to change the weather on 15 separate planets at once.

      cat weather - It's raining... oh, never mind.

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
  3. Re:One thing always missing from such stories... by JK_the_Slacker · · Score: 4, Funny

    6 to 8 years, you say? Well, then, they'll be ready to upgrade about the time the next version of Debian is released.

    --
    I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
  4. Re:Debian? by jonaskoelker · · Score: 4, Funny

    you shouldn't be running anything but compiled source on a performance cluster. you wouldn't be running anything but source compiles on a performance cluster. :p
  5. Re:hmm by JohnBailey · · Score: 4, Funny

    More importantly, is it Vista capable? Yes, but only home basic.
    --
    It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
  6. Re:Debian? by indifferent+children · · Score: 4, Funny

    Give the guy a break. He just wanted to see Gentoo compile in less than 2 weeks; he had a cluster handy...

    --
    Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
  7. Re:Debian? by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Funny

    the code the clusters was actually running was pretty much always compiled by hand.

    You really oughta use a compiler for that.

    --
    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg