Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IBM Open Sources Supercomputer Code

Posted by timothy on from the buttered-up-penguin-is-delicious dept.

eldavojohn writes "IBM has announced at the LinuxWorld conference that they are now hosting all their supercomputing stack software as open source from the University of Illinois. From the article: 'The software will initially support Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 and IBM Power6 processors. IBM is planning to add support for Power 575 supercomputing servers and IBM x86 platforms such as System x 3450 servers, BladeCenter servers and System x iDataPlex servers. The stack includes several distinct software tools that have been tested and integrated by IBM. These include the Extreme Cluster Administration Toolkit (xCAT), originally developed for large clusters based on Intel's commodity x86 architecture but now modified for clusters based on IBM's own Power architecture. xCAT is used in the National Nuclear Security Administration's Roadrunner Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — a hybrid cluster currently ranked by the official Top 500 list as the world's most powerful supercomputer.' For several years, Linux has been a strong tool for supercomputing."

7 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Sweet by EvilRyry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Something power6 derived anyways. Apple always wanted their chips with the Alitvec instructions which weren't part of any of the other power series. They also didn't want to pay a whole lot for these custom chips which they order in relatively small quantity. Its little wonder IBM didn't rush to get them new CPUs, they're probably happy Apple is just leaving them alone.

  2. the real goal by xzvf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I work for IBM, but this is speculation. The vast majority of money generated and earned on large Linux clusters came from selling hardware and services. This can only help generating that business.

  3. I'm confused about IBM by contrapunctus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They open source stuff and they patent ridiculous stuff. Am I supposed to like them or not?

    1. Re:I'm confused about IBM by pleappleappleap · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you don't want them to have to patent "ridiculous stuff" ensure that the business environment changes so that they don't need to.

  4. Re:Obligotory by pleappleappleap · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That would be exceedingly stupid. Why not just make a larger cluster over the high-speed clustering medium instead of throwing unnecessary Beowulf overhead into the process.

  5. Re:Sweet by davester666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really? Small quantities? IBM is really selling so many supercomputers that they need to produce more than a million of these Power chips every year?

    More likely, the requirements that Apple wanted/needed for it's PowerPC chips were different enough from where IBM wanted for the Power chip line, and IBM/Apple couldn't come to a financial agreement to produce the PowerPC chips that Apple needed [as in, the combination of cost per chip/capabilities of chip/when chip would be available that Apple wanted and what IBM could/would provide were different enough that they decided to go their separate ways.

    And I would guess that IBM really didn't want Apple to sell their POWER chips, because Apple's XServe line would probably significantly impact IBM's sales of their POWER blades...

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  6. Alright. now compare this to what microsoft by unity100 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    did in latest oscon. what do you see ? rock solid commitment compared to empty pr. you know which of them pertains to which company ...

    --
    Read radical news here