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Unholy Matrimony? Microsoft and Cray
fetusbear writes with a ZDNet story that says "'Microsoft and Cray are set to unveil on September 16 the Cray CX1, a compact supercomputer running Windows HPC Server 2008. The pair is expected to tout the new offering as "the most affordable supercomputer Cray has ever offered," with pricing starting at $25,000.' Although this would be the lowest cost hardware ever offered by Cray, it would also be the most expensive desktop ever offered by Microsoft."
I mean, come on, this thing's probably gotta play some pretty good games....
Let's see Toms Hardware and Anandtech put one of these babies through their paces!
My question is, how big does your Word document have to be for it to take a second to scroll from the top to the bottom of the document.
This is my sig.
Man, now even with buying a supercomputer we have to pay the Microsoft tax. We should sign a petition for them to sell the computers with Linux on them. Then we can drop the price to $24,900. That's WAY better.
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
n/t
Oh please. This really isn't "news for nerds". Maybe news for fools, but all of us here have known for months that this would be coming. I mean, what else can you imagine that would run Vista smoothly?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'll be able to run Crysis and Prince of Persia at the same time.
I bet Symantec Antivirus can get it on its knees.
-- Cheers!
...is not actually a "desktop". It's not even "a" computer. It's a cluster, and Cray could definately do better than this. Especially considering Unisys has built computers (no, not clusters) with a lot of processors a long time, many of them Windows Capable. So... Cray builds a cluster, Microsoft gets some free ad space for HPC Server. Hooray!
From the article:
If space is a problem, not to worry, itâ(TM)s compact enough to fit in a broom closet.
From the summary:
... it would also be the most expensive desktop ever offered by Microsoft.
I know, the summary was an attempt to bash MS.
This thing is able to generate the BSOD faster than anything you've EVER imagined.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
instead of bloggy blather, you can go to the source.
The man is spinning in his grave!
Just let Cray pass into history.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Since the machine in question isn't even a supercomputer, but simply a cluster of blades, I'd say Cray has nothing to worry about.
I beg to differ, I was running it just fine with only 512mb or ram on a 2.39ghz celeron processor. Once I turned off all the eye candy there were no performance issues.
It's probably the only case I can think of where the minimum requirements were at all realistic.
Everyone else has probably done the usual "how fast can a Cray show a BSoD?" gags, so all I was left with was:
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
You have to realize that communication between nodes in a cluster of off the shelf PCs is going to be much slower than the inter-node communication channels used in a Cray.
Any work that requires a lot of communication will always run faster on a real supercomputer versus a cluster of PCs. There will always be a niche for Cray, but their prices will continue to go up as more and more of their repeat customers realize they don't really need what they're getting.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
If they're running their shopping cart on it. I just tried to configure one and got the following error. I mean, honestly, what has happened to Cray if they're releasing applications that don't handle simple CRUD exceptions? This would earn an F in high school level computer science and released into production should be enough to tank their stock:
Server Error in '/configurator' Application.
An item with the same key has already been added.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.
Stack Trace:
[ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added.] ...
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:2.0.50727.42; ASP.NET Version:2.0.50727.42
Too Dinosaurs.
A Loosing strategy
Computers jobs
Mores Law
super computers lessons
I stopped reading at this point.
Cray have and have had their own custom UNIX distribution since before slashdot existed.
You can already get Linux on CRAY hardware -- the SGI Altix series. I haven't kept up on the offerings, but I beleive there are other *nix based offerings as well.
The value proposition of something like this is that people who are better at science than programming (you know, most super computer users) get something that makes them more productive than they'd otherwise be. The operating system on a super computer is almost irrelevant as it is customized so completely for the needs of the client. The value add in something like this is the developer productivity and toolchain on offer.
There are some seriously brainy people at MS working on the software side of HPC/scientific computing. Some of them are ex Cray employees.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Resistance is futile - you will be assimilated! A final nail in the coffin for traditional Unix. Now, Microsoft scales from tiny devices running in watches, to super-computers! Even changes to Windows 2008 servers allow administrators to run the OS on routers (without a UI, even solitare is removed). The arguments for Unix in any data center are almost gone.
well you know you can get red hat for it. and if you look up their other offerings, they do have real supercomputers with a modified BSD.
Cray is just barely more relevant to modern HPC than Silicon Graphics. Whether they're making a PC that runs Linux or a PC that runs Windows, it's still a PC. Yes, a massively parallel one, but it's a PC. The XMT series is the only really innovative thing that distinguishes Cray from the next guy down the street.
Computing has come to the point where commodity hardware can be almost endlessly strung together with commodity equipment to achieve the computing level necessary for most purposes. Furthermore, in the rare cases where it's necessary to go beyond this level, the cost of building a custom machine that outperforms commodity equipment is roughly one to two orders of magnitude more. Bottom line, it's just not cost effective for almost anyone to buy the cool high-end non-commodity gear anymore.
Which means that Cray will be reduced to a company that makes interconnects, like SGI is. Neat engineering, but the interconnects are now becoming commodity gear as well, which means that these companies won't be able to make enough profit to keep engineering as the focus of the company. They'll be forced into being a support/service company of their commodity hardware sold at a meagre 5% profit margin.
The one escape is gone as well--pushing Linux and Windows and the primary (or only) OSes means that they won't have anything special to offer. If, for instance, SGI had aggressively driven Irix, things might have been different for them.
The last front for development in current computing is in the labs of Intel and AMD, working on commodity gear. The days of boutique computing are dying.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I disagree, but then again, I work in the HPC industry.
1. Standard computers have already taken over all of those jobs that used to require a supercomputer. There's no more market to loose. HPC is a 6-7 billion dollar market. The TAM is growing slower than the rest of the IT industry, but it's still a large niche market.
2. Clusters got really popular for a few years, but have really fallen out of favor at the high end of the HPC market. That said, the difference between a high-end super, and a cluster, is rather small. Thankfully the price difference is shrinking too. Moreover, this product IS a cluster. It looks like an attempt, by Cray, to get into the low end of the HPC market. Cray, like everyone else, would like to be the company taking market share away from itself, rather than let someone else take it.
3. IBM has a compelling strategy of reusing their high-end POWER-X processor super-servers, and selling them as supercomputers. The problem with this, is that they are obscenely expensive as supercomputers. A high-end database server has a whole pile of functionality that is completely unnecessary for HPC jobs, both in hardware, and in software. Big iron servers are also WAY more expensive, per-processor, than a super. As such, IBM is also making supers out of commodity clusers, commodity clusters with CELL coprocessors, and BlueGene, which is much closer to CrayXT than it is to an IBM mainframe or superserver. I would argue that IBM's diversity may work against it, in the HPC market, as it tries to fit a round peg into a square hole.
I'm not sure Cray will be very successful with this CX1 product, or generally, selling to the low-end HPC market. That, however, is not reason to believe that there is no need for venders specialized in HPC systems. Cray has made quite a comeback, in the last few years. The reason one thinks of Cray as a dinosaur, is that the HPC market is so much smaller now, relative to the entire IT industry, compared to the 1980s. Nonetheless, it's still an important niche.
You can have up to 8 "blades". each blade is a dual socket Xeon board with it's own RAm and graphics. The blades are in effect dual CPU Xeon PCs. The blades are connected to an high performance Ethernet switch which ties them together in a cluster.
So if you call eight PCs connected to a network a "supper computer" then this is it.
what about On a Machine like yours that has the Shift key Randomly Come on?
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
As someone who does science HPC for a living, I am confused. Who actually wants Windows for HPC? What value does it provide that Linux or UNIX doesn't? I've never heard of a single use case where Linux or some UNIX wasn't better by miles.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the CX1 uses ordinary infiniband as interconnect. So if you get four 1U twins infiniband from Supermicro you got the same configuration for a much lower price in 5U. You do loose the sleek case though.
That's "Hadron". I'm trying not to imagine what a Large Hardon Collider would do...
I got a new computer. Oh yea? What kind? It's the new Cray OMG PONIES!!! It runs Duke Nukem Forever like a mutha!
I'd sell my left nut to buy one if they named it that, just to be able to say I had one.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
Surprisingly enough, people choose Windows for reasons other than legacy. Maybe they have a lot of knowledgeable Windows developers, or the company has some stupid policy about which OSes you can use, or maybe they actually prefer to work with Windows.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
My LARGE HARDON COLLIDER pushes large, energised hardons through a ring repeatedly, faster and faster, as smoothly and tightly as possible, until they clash and spray matter in all directions.
... what?
(Who invented that horribly typo-prone word anyway?)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I'm sure I could configure a Mac Pro that costs more than that, and it will run Windows too.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
A supercomputer turns all tasks into IO bound problems.
A mainframe turns all tasks into a CPU bound problem.
A microcomputer just runs awhile and crashes.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Serving up one of the most crappy and broken corporate websites I've seen lately, Cray bedazzles me. They can't be serious, can they? Running a high throughput, custom piece of hardware on Windows as the prime OS? ... Unbelievable.
What Oomph does this thing have anyway? 16 Quad-Core Xeons. 64GB per node. Doesn't sound like that much of a a big deal to me. What corners could Cray have cut with the system archiecture itself to justify the hype? Won't a smalish blade-box or something simular from Sun or IBM wipe the floor with this thing? ... Just wondering.
Anybody with deeper insights on this?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
not trolling boys, so relax, its an OPINION.
For many of us coders, geeks and otherwise technically inclined here on Slashdot, this issue is one where for some, it is an emotional outlet, where few others exist. Others have issues pertaining to Sex, Families, LIFE, and other things to massage our emotional minds over.
To many of us, Microsoft represents something we love to hate, because we can. There is a disconnect between what works in technology, and what works in business. Many of us downplay the importance of Marketing, Leverage, Tie-in, Competition Analysis, and other stuff you don't learn in your CS program, but only in Business school.
We have a hard time seeing Microsoft as a business, responsible to its shareholders above all else, we embrace those orgs who see themselves as some kind of technical crusader, ready to right the wrongs in our industry, using truth, justice, and the American way.
It is the rare geek who can get beyond the technical arguments and embrace the quite logical reasons for why Microsoft has so much marketshare today. The concept of "Barriers to Entry" is rarely discussed when pushing an alternative to MS Office, Exchange Server, or other Microsoft tools.
Instead, we choose to blame the stupid CIO, who in a moment of insanity, decides to go with the Microsoft solution, like 90% of his peers, when he could be that brave, intrepid warrior for good, by going with Linux Servers, Open Office and more.
I mean, who actually uses those integrated Calendar/Scheduling thingies anyway, dammit? If I want to book a conference room 2 weeks in advance, I'll hang a post-it note on the damn door! Easy, and I dont have to deal with integrity testing that blasted Exchange database!
You see, there is nobility in suffering.
If it takes me a week to get my DVD-RW to burn disks under Linux, who cares, if I am a better person for the effort?
It is simply a case of the quest for perfection acting as an enemy of the "good enough".
This is a highly simplistic argument, tonque in cheek, and all that, but true.
And, as always, I got karma to burn bitches, so if you disagree, give it your best shot!
I wonder how many M$ licenses they'll sell vs. how many RHEL pre-installs they'll be doing?
Yeah, without the "eye candy", what is the point of getting Vista when you can get XP, which is more secure(sadly), or linux, which is more secure and free? If you have to turn off features of the OS to get it to work, guess what? It isn't working well.