So another problem is that most of these clusters are 32 bit. I am constantly banging my head against that fact when I try to port codes from big iron to clusters. Makes me wanna kill myself sometimes...trying to figure out how to get a multi-thousand line 64-bit fortran code to run on a 32-bit machine with half-assed compilers.
oh please. vector still kicks ass at certain algorithms over parallel machines, things like irregular access to memory, and well, long vector problems. the transition to parallel machines has been almost entirely political. parallel is better at some things, but not all. the site I work for still has a Cray/SGI T90/16, and it is the heaviest used machine among a T3E, IBM SP2 and SP(3), as well as tons of little crappy clusters.
Yeah, a cpu is a chip. A node is a cabinet which may share cpus and memory and some internal interconnect. While a cpu is a chip, this chip may be a vector chip or a "normal" chip. vector chips can do sooooo much more per clock cycle for vectorizable algorithms, that's why the skew in the #'s of cpus. they're also seriously more expensive than "normal" chips.
that's cuz the japanese one is a bigass vector machine. the processors are much more expensive, but they also haul ass over a regular risc chip. they're also significantly easier to program. However, for some reason, people have decided that vector machines are out of fasion. whatever, makes my job more secure 'cause parallel programming is significantly more difficult than vector programming.:-) Now if only it paid as well as say, Java programming I'd be stoked!
some do but most absolutely do NOT use intel processors. Most use stuff you can't get in your average pc. It's close, but not the same. They use a version of the cpu with hugely enhanced pipelining and floating point performance.
So I've had a little indirect exposure to Data Explorer. I've heard what users think about using it, and it's mostly been negative, on the order of "Please find us a better sci-vis package...pleasepleasepleaseplease!!!!!"
I haven't personally used it, though, and users, are...well... users.;-)
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So another problem is that most of these clusters are 32 bit. I am constantly banging my head against that fact when I try to port codes from big iron to clusters. Makes me wanna kill myself sometimes...trying to figure out how to get a multi-thousand line 64-bit fortran code to run on a 32-bit machine with half-assed compilers.
oh please. vector still kicks ass at certain algorithms over parallel machines, things like irregular access to memory, and well, long vector problems. the transition to parallel machines has been almost entirely political. parallel is better at some things, but not all. the site I work for still has a Cray/SGI T90/16, and it is the heaviest used machine among a T3E, IBM SP2 and SP(3), as well as tons of little crappy clusters.
Yeah, a cpu is a chip. A node is a cabinet which may share cpus and memory and some internal interconnect. While a cpu is a chip, this chip may be a vector chip or a "normal" chip. vector chips can do sooooo much more per clock cycle for vectorizable algorithms, that's why the skew in the #'s of cpus. they're also seriously more expensive than "normal" chips.
that's cuz the japanese one is a bigass vector machine. the processors are much more expensive, but they also haul ass over a regular risc chip. they're also significantly easier to program. However, for some reason, people have decided that vector machines are out of fasion. whatever, makes my job more secure 'cause parallel programming is significantly more difficult than vector programming. :-) Now if only it paid as well as say, Java programming I'd be stoked!
some do but most absolutely do NOT use intel processors. Most use stuff you can't get in your average pc. It's close, but not the same. They use a version of the cpu with hugely enhanced pipelining and floating point performance.
So I've had a little indirect exposure to Data Explorer. I've heard what users think about using it,
;-)
and it's mostly been negative, on the order of
"Please find us a better sci-vis package...pleasepleasepleaseplease!!!!!"
I haven't personally used it, though, and users, are...well...
users.
I've seen their roadmap. They have grand plans for the alpha for at least a few more years. (very cool grand plans, too!!! )