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Open Source Solution Breaks World Sorting Records

Posted by Soulskill on from the out-of-sorts dept.

allenw writes "In a recent blog post, Yahoo's grid computing team announced that Apache Hadoop was used to break the current world sorting records in the annual GraySort contest. It topped the 'Gray' and 'Minute' sorts in the general purpose (Daytona) category. They sorted 1TB in 62 seconds, and 1PB in 16.25 hours. Apache Hadoop is the only open source software to ever win the competition. It also won the Terasort competition last year."

9 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. When's it going to be 1.0? by AlexBirch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it's winning competitions at 0.20, when will they release it?

    1. Re:When's it going to be 1.0? by BikeHelmet · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Isn't 1.0 production for most software jargon?

      Nah, that's 6.0

      MS DOS 6.0
      IE 6.0
      Visual Studio 6.0

      I doubt anybody would want to use an earlier version than that!

    2. Re:When's it going to be 1.0? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You realise, I hope, that Vista is Windows NT 6.0...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. What data? by Tinctorius · · Score: 1, Insightful

    They sorted 1TB in 62 seconds, and 1PB in 16.25 hours.

    This doesn't say anything if we don't know what kind of records were supposed to be sorted.

    1. Re:What data? by Antisyzygy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Things can be sorted by any of their properties. What is important is this software sorted data objects this quickly regardless of what property they were being ordered by. It beats all of the other sorting algorithms.

      --
      That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
  3. They won the "Who has the most moneys" award. by nathan.fulton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...this cluster had nearly 4 times the number of nodes as the previous records. This competition was testing who had more nodes working together the best, but when you have so many more nodes, it would be hard not to top other clusters.

  4. Java by cratermoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OK, so where are the "Java is slow" comments? o.O

    1. Re:Java by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, not to endorse the "Java is slow" meme or anything, but starting from a red light I can beat most cars across the intersection on my bike.

      Likewise if I had to drive across country in the shortest time possible, I'd choose a Ford F250 if the challenge stipulated I had to bring 3000 pounds of bricks with me.

      Speed is a very task specific notion.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  5. Re:Use C++ and save 10x the hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Development isn't any easier or faster than C++.

    Ridiculous. Java's library provides 100 times what C++'s library provides, which makes it a solid ground for application development (which is what it excels at).