Slashdot Mirror
Aussie Scientists Build a Cluster To Map the Sky
Tri writes "Scientists at the Siding Spring Observatory have built a new system to map and record over 1 billion objects in the southern hemisphere sky. They collect 700 GB of data every night, which they then crunch down using some perl scripts and make available to other scientists through a web interface backed on Postgresql. 'Unsurprisingly, the Southern Sky Survey will result in a large volume of raw data — about 470 terabytes ... when complete. ... the bulk of the analysis of the SkyMapper data will be done on a brand new, next generation Sun supercomputer kitted out with 12,000 cores. Due to be fully online by December, the supercomputer will offer a tenfold increase in performance over the facility's current set up of two SGI machines, each with just under 3500 cores in total.'"
I wonder which CPU the supercomputer will be using. Could be Opterons, or SPARC. I could easily imagine 12000 out of a SPARC Niagra or SPARC VIIfx (8 cores per-die) and would use less wattage than the same number of cores in Opteron. Plus, if they're doing dual or quad-precision, the SPARCs will hold their own.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
it's a skynet?
Beowulf Cluster
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
next generation Sun supercomputer kitted out with 12,000 cores ... will offer a tenfold increase in performance over the .. two SGI machines, each with just under 3500 cores in total
How is that 10x faster? I imagine because the new v. old cores are not equally comparable. In that case, why talk number of cores at all?
Sun servers running perl you say?
I'd say that has the price:performance ratio of a Rolls Royce. And that's not a good thing. :)
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
Good to see the coolest language around being put to a(nother) cool use.
With that much data we might finally have enough information to generate a singular point of reference in space and time so we can retrofit a poorly designed all stainless steel car and travel back in time 200 years and not find out selves drifting in the middle of nowhere since 200 years ago, relative to some unknown non-moving reference point, our planet, solar system, and galaxy is probably no where near where it was 200 years ago!
FLUX CAPACITOR FTW!
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Imagine a open/globular cluster of those....
ya, but can it run crysis?
They're moving from 1.6Ghz single core Itaniums to dual quad core Xeon blades. I suspect they're talking about cores to emphasize the density gain, and because people like huge numbers.
"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous are its laws." -Tacticus
"Old Man Rant"
Why do I cring every time I hear people use terms like Tenfold and order of magnatitude....
From what I gather the whole 10 Fold, 3 Fold, was more about the progressive thickness of cloth in relation to the number of folds back in the war when we made planes out of canvas.
1mm thick material when increase 3 fold is
1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 8 mm thick. Ten fold would then be 512 mm thick...
Why are we talking about folding stuff? Where are the protients... WHa? I DON'T WANT TO TAKE THE PILLS! WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE! LEAVE ME ALONE!
I'M NOT DOING ANY LAUNDRY! ;)
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
The Altix line begs to differ. They're not using Onyxes.
"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous are its laws." -Tacticus
From what I gather the whole 10 Fold, 3 Fold, was more about the progressive thickness of cloth in relation to the number of folds
That's an...interesting theory, but I can't find anything to support it. My M-W dictionary says the phrase goes back to the 12th century (so it has nothing to do with making planes of any type), and clearly states that "tenfold" means ten times, so your suggestion that it "really" means 2^10 is simply false. My own guess is that this ancient phrase has more to do with "in the fold" (where you find sheep, or perhaps wolves) than with cloth, but I can't prove that either.