Virginia Tech Supercomputer Details

[evolu]

bbc article

Lots of great new details like:

The project's chief architect, Srinidhi Varadarajan, had to write a special program called Deja Vu to ensure that if an individual computer crashed in the middle of a calculation lasting weeks, if not months, another computer would take over seamlessly

...and...

The heat is so intense that ordinary air conditioning units would have resulted in 60-mph (95 km/h) winds. Specialised heat exchange cooling units were built that pipe chilled water into the facility.

 

[yamabushi]

The article quotes a performance of 17.6 Tflops. This must be based upon preliminary tests so isn't official yet. If that is the supercomputer's peak(not sustained) perfomance then that would place it as the third most powerful computer in the world. On the other hand, if it is a measure of sustained performance, it jumps up a spot to number two. Impressive is an understatement - especially for a five million dollar system. I hope the official benchmarks place it in the top five when they are released next month. http://www.top500.org/

Any bets as to what the actual perfomance and ranking will be?

 

[aethier]

gee, it sure must be pricey to run, if it consumes the same amount of electricity as 3000 average sized homes..

aethier

 

[evolu]

Not a bad story for the front page of the BBC news website...

A great source for news btw, for those of you looking to avoid biased american news sources.

 

[dongmin]

Arguably Virginia Tech has revolutionised the world of supercomputing with a simplistic setup that can be duplicated around the globe by other institutions.

It has documented how it did this from start to finish so if others want to follow suit, they can send off for a kit that tells them how to do it.

Do-It-Yourself Home Supercomputer Kit
Available at Apple Store Online
$5 million

Great pub for Apple. Hope this means that Apple will be getting a lot more of this kind of business

 

[MrMacMan]

Behind Earth Simulator

Earth Simulator Cost -- $350 million Dollars.

Thats frikken amazing.

I mean that KICKS.

Really great thing.

 

[LimeLite]

At night, do you think they shut it down, or put it to sleep?

 

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by LimeLite
At night, do you think they shut it down, or put it to sleep?

Err, Choice C:
Leave it on 24/7

 

[LimeLite]

Originally posted by MrMacman
Err, Choice C:
Leave it on 24/7

Ooh, I wonder what screen saver they use!

 

[charliektm400ex]

That's a lot of power

Originally posted by aethier
gee, it sure must be pricey to run, if it consumes the same amount of electricity as 3000 average sized homes..

aethier

The figures don't add up.

If there are 1100 computers, then that means every computer uses the same power as 3 houses?

Charlie

 

[LimeLite]

Re: That's a lot of power

Originally posted by charliektm400ex
The figures don't add up.

If there are 1100 computers, then that means every computer uses the same power as 3 houses?

Charlie

You also have to factor in the power of the cooling system and the switches and all of the other components. It's not just the computers. And since that cooling system pumps a lot of gallons of water at 45 degrees, that probably uses a lot.

Still seems a little excessive, but who knows.

 

[richters]

Re: Virginia Tech Supercomputer Details

Originally posted by evolu
bbc article


Using Google with the terms 'virginia' and 'supercomputer' gets me 28800 entries. So, I guess everybody, who would want to know more about it, can.
But what is the latest news? The thing should be running by October 1st. Does it?And how? Anybody know the latest?

r.

 

[Java]

Quake or unreal

I wonder if any intern there loaded Quake or Unreal onto one of those machines. Just for the fun of it. Wonder what the refresh rate would be

(Now this is what I call a LAN party)

 

[MrMacMan]

Re: Quake or unreal

Originally posted by Java
I wonder if any intern there loaded Quake or Unreal onto one of those machines. Just for the fun of it. Wonder what the refresh rate would be

(Now this is what I call a LAN party)

haha, but I doubt they bought that many monitors...


If they did that would be a nice network game.

'Massive Multiplayer Online G5 Super Computer' (Like MMORPG )

I doubt any *normal* application can run across a supercomputer.

the calculations they are doing these apps are hand coded so they can run across the network... but not quake or anything.

 

[nagromme]

Xgrid and Xserve G5... and deadline

VA Tech did this without two MAJOR Apple products that weren't ready in time. Xgrid and Xserve G5. So doing this again will cost the next institution even less and work even better!

For fun, here are 1100 G5s all together:
http://www.spymac.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=54045

And to put 3000 sq. ft. into perspective, that's 60x 50 feet. Pretty dense.

Also, a note re the deadline:

"Missing that deadline would have meant automatic disqualification from the NSF's global supercomputer rankings"

So they did make the deadline after all! I'd heard it both ways.