The point of a parallel file system is that you do not need RAID.
Really? Why has virtually every production parallel file system implementation I've ever seen (using GPFS, Lustre, and PVFS) been done on top of hardware RAID controllers?
The/. summary of TFA is almost exquisitely bad. It's not Window or Linux that's not ready for multicore (as both have supported multi-processor machines for on the order of a decade or more), but rather the userspace applications that aren't ready. The reason is simple: Parallel programming is rather hard, and historically most ISVs have haven't wanted to invest in it because they could rely on the processors getting faster every year or two... but no longer.
One area where I disagree with TFA is the claimed paucity of programming models and tools. Virtually every OS out there supports some kind of concurrent programming model, and often more than one depending on what language is used -- pthreads, Win32 threads, Java threads, OpenMP, MPI or Global Arrays on the high end, etc. Most debuggers (even gdb) also support debugging threaded programs, and if those don't have enough heft, there's always Totalview. The problem is that most ISVs have studiously avoided using any of these except when given no other choice.
I mean, it has a SourceForge page whose mailing list archives go back to 2001, fer cryin' out loud.
Now some of the "OpenHPC" stuff appears to be new, but not all of it appears to originate from IBM. For instance, part of it appears to be a repackaging of the SLURM batch system from LLNL. The one thing that looks like a genuine contribution from IBM is the "Advance Toolchain" stuff, but even that appears to draw heavily from existing open source code bases like valgrind.
Er, supercomputers do have home directories, or at least rationally administered ones do.
The footnote I'd intended to put in was "There are, however, several file systems that do everything poorly", but I figured I'd be in trouble with several vendors if I gave specific examples...
NFSv3 can scale this big for home directories if you spread the namespace and load across several beefy servers, especially if you also train your users to stage data in and out of parallel file systems (GPFS, Lustre, PVFS, etc.) and/or node-local file systems for I/O intensive jobs. There's no "silver bullet" file system that does everything well*, and there's no shame in using multiple file systems for different parts of your workload where they will work well.
Technically, Catholics are "evangelical Christians" too.
Let's be honest here: When most people, particularly in the U.S., use the phrase "evangelical Christians", they really mean "fundamentalist evangelical Christians", because somewhere in the last ten or fifteen years the news media stopped using the word "fundamentalist".
Consider the following quote about Vietnam from somebody who was in the thick of it from a policy perspective:
"What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn't have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can't persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we'd better reexamine our reasoning." --Robert S. McNamara, The Fog of War
Now consider that the only one of the allies in the above list who still supports our little adventure in Iraq is Britain, and that support is fairly unpopular among the British people. (Japan used to have some small number of troops in Iraq, but they pulled out about two years ago.)
So the Iranians strung together 216 previous-gen 2GHz Opterons... Big freaking deal. This is not exactly rocket science; it's all off-the-shelf commodity stuff, both hardware and software. I know several university research groups that have more computing power than that, let alone supercomputer centers.
If they field a machine in the tens of teraflops, *then* there might be some cause for alarm...
"We don't have an LVM layer to speak of, so we're going to build it into the file system."
There are a lot of things to like about ZFS. The built-in LVM isn't one of them IMHO, but I can see where it might be attractive if either you don't already have an LVM subsystem or your existing LVM subsystem is complete crap.
In reference to the recent comment by your head of ligitation that ripping CDs you own is not just copyright infringement but "theft", I would like to ask the following:
Explain to me how you can possibly justify this statement in light of the fair use doctrine and Sony v. Universal (a.k.a. the Betamax decision). (Because I suspect you can't, at least not without contradicting yourself.)
The "twelve parsecs" bit was Han trying to puff up his rep, and the look that Kenobi gives him when he says that always seemed to me to indicate that Kenobi knew he was completely full of $#!+. No further explanation needed.
(And for the record, the black hole retcon explanation was just pathetic.)
Something like the big studios are useful because they have the financial backing for large scale projects (in movies mostly, it's less necessary in music unless you have to heavily market something inherently worthless). If they were to die it would be problematic for that industry. The high budget films would be starved for funding. This could well translate into a decrease in quality and originality as only "safe" films would be produced.
(Emphasis mine.)
And this would be different from the last 3-4 years of film releases how?
It wasn't just U. of Minnesota, either. In '94 or '95, I had a couple people from Ohio State's Academic Computing Services department tell me that "this web thing is just a fad" and that I shouldn't bother with it, because the OSU physics department had just cancelled their web project with CERN... They were adamant that Gopher was going to take over the world.
I mean, is it even possible to do any more injustice to a show?
Well, you could only air 11 of the 14 episodes produced, show those episodes out of order and in wildly inconsistent time slots, and refuse to air the pilot episode until after the show's been cancelled. Not that Fox has ever done that...
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Really? Why has virtually every production parallel file system implementation I've ever seen (using GPFS, Lustre, and PVFS) been done on top of hardware RAID controllers?
...but for $2.1M, it had better be the frickin' Batmobile. Complete with Batman as the chauffeur.
The /. summary of TFA is almost exquisitely bad. It's not Window or Linux that's not ready for multicore (as both have supported multi-processor machines for on the order of a decade or more), but rather the userspace applications that aren't ready. The reason is simple: Parallel programming is rather hard, and historically most ISVs have haven't wanted to invest in it because they could rely on the processors getting faster every year or two... but no longer.
One area where I disagree with TFA is the claimed paucity of programming models and tools. Virtually every OS out there supports some kind of concurrent programming model, and often more than one depending on what language is used -- pthreads, Win32 threads, Java threads, OpenMP, MPI or Global Arrays on the high end, etc. Most debuggers (even gdb) also support debugging threaded programs, and if those don't have enough heft, there's always Totalview. The problem is that most ISVs have studiously avoided using any of these except when given no other choice.
--t
Other than every supercomputer on the planet worth talking about, that is...
Uh, because it's paid for out of the NNSA budget?
I mean, it has a SourceForge page whose mailing list archives go back to 2001, fer cryin' out loud.
Now some of the "OpenHPC" stuff appears to be new, but not all of it appears to originate from IBM. For instance, part of it appears to be a repackaging of the SLURM batch system from LLNL. The one thing that looks like a genuine contribution from IBM is the "Advance Toolchain" stuff, but even that appears to draw heavily from existing open source code bases like valgrind.
The footnote I'd intended to put in was "There are, however, several file systems that do everything poorly", but I figured I'd be in trouble with several vendors if I gave specific examples...
NFSv3 can scale this big for home directories if you spread the namespace and load across several beefy servers, especially if you also train your users to stage data in and out of parallel file systems (GPFS, Lustre, PVFS, etc.) and/or node-local file systems for I/O intensive jobs. There's no "silver bullet" file system that does everything well*, and there's no shame in using multiple file systems for different parts of your workload where they will work well.
Technically, Catholics are "evangelical Christians" too.
Let's be honest here: When most people, particularly in the U.S., use the phrase "evangelical Christians", they really mean "fundamentalist evangelical Christians", because somewhere in the last ten or fifteen years the news media stopped using the word "fundamentalist".
I thought the Nazgùl were lawyers. Specifically, IBM's.
Unless it's Godzilla: Final Wars , in which case Sidney ends up on the receiving end...
So the Iranians strung together 216 previous-gen 2GHz Opterons... Big freaking deal. This is not exactly rocket science; it's all off-the-shelf commodity stuff, both hardware and software. I know several university research groups that have more computing power than that, let alone supercomputer centers.
If they field a machine in the tens of teraflops, *then* there might be some cause for alarm...
...who couldn't be bothered to acknowledge that they were violating the GPL with their "University Toolkit" till their ISP got a DMCA takedown notice?
Seriously, remind me why we should take their "intellectual property rights" seriously if they're not willing to reciprocate.
Some people certainly appear to be trying. A couple years ago, somebody tried to patent a story line.
"We don't have an LVM layer to speak of, so we're going to build it into the file system."
There are a lot of things to like about ZFS. The built-in LVM isn't one of them IMHO, but I can see where it might be attractive if either you don't already have an LVM subsystem or your existing LVM subsystem is complete crap.
In reference to the recent comment by your head of ligitation that ripping CDs you own is not just copyright infringement but "theft", I would like to ask the following:
Explain to me how you can possibly justify this statement in light of the fair use doctrine and Sony v. Universal (a.k.a. the Betamax decision). (Because I suspect you can't, at least not without contradicting yourself.)
Bite me,
--/me
Reference, please?
You say that like it's a bad thing.
(And for the record, the black hole retcon explanation was just pathetic.)
I think you're confusing him with Keith Richards.
And this would be different from the last 3-4 years of film releases how?
It wasn't just U. of Minnesota, either. In '94 or '95, I had a couple people from Ohio State's Academic Computing Services department tell me that "this web thing is just a fad" and that I shouldn't bother with it, because the OSU physics department had just cancelled their web project with CERN... They were adamant that Gopher was going to take over the world.
And don't forget "Bohemian Polka".