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Supercomputer Repossessed By State, May Be Sold In Pieces
1sockchuck writes "A supercomputer that was the third-fastest machine in the world in 2008 has been repossessed by the state of New Mexico and will likely be sold in pieces to three universities in the state. The state has been unable to find a buyer for the Encanto supercomputer, which was built and maintained with $20 million in state funding. The supercomputer had the enthusiastic backing of Gov. Bill Richardson, who saw the project as an economic development tool for New Mexico. But the commercial projects did not materialize, and Richardson's successor, Susana Martinez, says the supercomputer is a 'symbol of excess.'"
A Beowolf clusted of these! :)
Paul B.
2008 technology. Seems more like three universities are getting stuck with it than anything else. The parts will be 5 years old by the time everything is divided up and distributed. That's fine if you're redistributing old desktops to set up a lab for kids to type up term papers or something but supercomputers are supposed to be cutting edge. Maybe they can use it for a computer history class. "This is how we built supercomputers back in the day."
As a citizen of New Mexico, Susana Martinez is probably the dumbest and most shortsighted politician I've ever seen in office. She makes George W. Bush look like Albert W. Einstein.
I know that's off-topic, but Goddamn is that woman stupid. I just had to say something.
Susana uses an iPhone.
Think of how many Bitcoins this thing could make. Someone should tell New Mexico.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Supercomputer is a tool.
Like any other kind of tool, if used correctly, a supercomputer can be very beneficial, and can generate a lot of profit and/or prestige for its owner.
But of course, like any other kind of tool, if a supercomputer is ***NOT*** used correctly, it'll become a burden, a waste of money, an eyesore.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Um.. it worked in Wyoming, millions into a supercomputer to attract more tech companies.
Not a symbol of excess. It's a symbol of how the government cannot and should not try to identify (and fund) particular technologies (see: Solyndra). Let the market determine the market. Central planning hasn't worked for anyone. Jeeeez.
Well, if you want that kind of resource, Amazon is very happy to sell it to you these days. In 2008, it was still a novel concept. Assuming that a government project should be able to spearhead such a development, especially with a huge one-time investment in hardware, that's the real stupidity.
Eh?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Like NASA or DARPA?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Is "Those new Mexicans are cunning." more accurate?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
There are not many problems these days that cannot be parallelized and split up to be run on a large number of off the shelf hardware. It is much easier to grow a Beowulf Cluster to add performance than redesigning to eke out every bit of capability of top-of-the-line hardware. Much easier also, to redesign your problem so that it can take advantage of parallelism. I agree that this was probably a boondoggle by a politician wanting to get some publicity for himself.
Alright so this thing won't place on the Top 500 list but that's not the point. Its a real supercomputer and an ideal learning environment for distributed computing. No a room full of desktops and gigabit ethernet is not the same thing.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Yes. The government is the perfect candidate for extremely high risk, high reward investments. No other organization has enough capital to diversify that kind of risk away and reap the rewards.
I hate grammar Nazi's.
I think they should set up a not-for-profit foundation, like sdf to maintain and administer the box, and open it up to public access via ssh like SDF.
Whether you're liberal or conservative, does anyone really believe that the government spending tax dollars on expensive speculative investments makes sense?
You mean like basic research on things that may not be realizable for a decade or two? What's your feeling on the internet which grew out of research on networking in the 70s and 80s. What about the funding for ultrafast networking that's happening now? What about things like the tevatron and LHC which resulted in things like MRIs being made feasible?
Personally, I'm all for it.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Where science and engineering is considered as excess,but litigation/lawsuit are considered as normal.
Well, if you want that kind of resource, Amazon is very happy to sell it to you these days. In 2008, it was still a novel concept. Assuming that a government project should be able to spearhead such a development, especially with a huge one-time investment in hardware, that's the real stupidity.
What???? Amazon EC2 instances aren't comparable because they have much more latency for internode communications. In any case, if you have a decent workload, EC2 is really expensive. Using 2 large instances for compute nodes and using 50TB of storage will cost you about $7500 a month. Amazon's calculator gives an estimate of $30k a month for a HPC cluster. At that pricing, you can easily buy comparable equipment and come out ahead even with power, maintenance, and people if you're using it regularly. EC2 only makes sense if you need this sort of computational power for a week or so every few months.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Probably, but it still doesn't make much sense.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Face it you got a bunch of dopey Republicans who would rather take a political shot at the previous Democrats rather than do anything useful with the supercomputer. Anyone with half a brain would simply rent out access at negotiated rates to those three university rather put it out of commission. Of course the whole scam will be to sell it as cheap as possible, spend as much as possible on breaking it up and then blame everything on democrats in the next election cycle.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This is a very old machine. It was a piece of crap the day it was turned on and never got better. It isn't worth the electricity and cooling even when broken up. For the money it will take to dismantle, move, re-install, power, and cool individual racks you could get something smaller, less power hungry, brand new and in support for half the money.
The whole thing needs to get scrapped. What the state has actually done here is find a way to avoid paying to have it scrapped by "gifting" it to the universities who will discover the above facts after much time and money are already spent and end up having to pay to scrap it themselves.
It's actually clever (or sneaky/slimy) way to unload a lemon. "Hey here's a car I don't use anymore. Practically new. You tow it and do the 12k in repairs and it's all yours for *free*!"
It was a non-profit organization that was running this and they owed money to sgi for maintenance.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Probably, but it still doesn't make much sense.
C'mon, it's /. , what do you expect?
Nerds need to be exact, not necessarily to make sense... (otherwise they wouldn't be different enough from non-nerds to justify a distinctive term)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
So I guess that makes it almost as powerful as my iPad mini.... lol
It would whip the cobbler out of your Apple.
Well, get some priest admins, then. Exorcise the demons!!
Whether you're liberal or conservative, does anyone really believe that the government spending tax dollars on expensive speculative investments makes sense?
Considering the long term scientific, economic and social payoff we Aussies get from an organization such as CSIRO, I'd say it makes a huge amount of sense. Such organisations exist in the US, NOAA and NASA come to mind, and then there are the international organizations funded by taxpayers such as the LHC. As for it being speculative, scientists have a saying; "If I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be called research".
What makes no sense to me is short changing science in a technological world and expecting a government to have the motivations and goals of a large corporation.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
That would be a testament to government. One cent on the dollar, or less.
I am sure when she was 15yo she played sim city a lot and got all her knowledge from that.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Being a New Mexican (Cloudcroft is very nice if you can live without good bookstores and movie theaters within 75 miles), the thing that I find most weird is talking to people in other states who think New Mexico is part of the country just south of us. My wife and I have spoken with people that, when given our shipping address, say "we don't ship to foreign countries."
Martinez? She seems a decent governor. Definitely less loony than Jan Brewer.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
Or dopey democrats who will find I way to spend as much as possible to operate it, then blame the republicans....
your partisan schill weasel words annoy me. get out