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Virginia Tech Supercomputer?

"some" is 122

Originally posted by BigJayhawk
There are no Apple computer products on the top 500 yet. There ARE some Pentiums and Athlons, etc.)
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Actually, 122 of the top 500 are Intel-based - 100 Pentiums, and 22 Itanium and AMD systems.

#3 is a Xeon cluster, and there's another Xeon cluster and an Itanium cluster in the top 10.
 
Originally posted by AidenShaw
The interconnect is InfiniBand, a high bandwidth (up to 10Gbps and more) low latency computer room solution.

Your other arguments, however, are not as strong.

And the Power Mac is a poor choice for space efficiency - you could get 84 to 168 3.06 GHz Xeons in a standard rack - compared to only 12 PPC970s.

Not only is space expensive, but high-speed low-latency interconnects often have rather limited lengths (InfiniBand over copper quotes 16 meters). "Server sprawl" can be a problem ;)
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Agreed which is why I initially incorrectly assumed they might use CPU's sitting in a student lab for normal daily use and just use spare processor cycles with either 1000BT ethernet or even IP over firewire 800 insterad of infiniband.

But it seems they are targeting some truly leading edge bandwidth applications. Not sure how high a duty cycle thay can maintain on this cluster farm, or if it is mainly for brag value.

Rocketman

Can we log in? :)
 
Failures will be common, and must be tolerated

Originally posted by Rocketman
it seems they are targeting some truly leading edge bandwidth applications. Not sure how high a duty cycle thay can maintain on this cluster farm, or if it is mainly for brag value.
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I'm sure that Apple is looking forward to a place on the Top 500 !

The "duty cycle" shouldn't be a problem (except for building power failures and similar events).

It may be that there is never a time when all 1100 systems are working - these large clusters assume that some systems will be dead, and tolerate it. It's even possible that the design goal is 1000 systems, and the extra hundred are there to make sure that at least 1000 are always running.

Looking at it another way, if the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of the Power Mac is 3 years - then statistically a system will fail every day.

Personally, I'd worry about memory errors. Compaq did a study that showed that one can expect a soft memory error at a rate of one error per gibibyte per year.

Since the VT cluster will have 4-8 GiB per system - that works out to one error every hour or two.

Would you want to have your computer giving you the wrong answer every hour?

Other manufacturers offer hot swap memory, RAID memory, "spare" memory and similar features. Apple doesn't even believe in ECC :mad:
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Doubt it....

Originally posted by AidenShaw
P4Logo.jpg


The SSE2 SIMD unit supports 64-bit integers - even the Microsoft Visual C++ compiler will generate SSE2 64-bit integer instructions if told to. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...core/html/vclrfArchMinimumCPUArchitecture.asp)
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Well, when I said '64 bit ints' I meant 64 bit registers in the integer unit. (But kudos anyway for coming up with the counter example! ;-) In my experience, 64 bit integer units and 64 bit addressing (hardware) go hand in hand.

And I agree, the general rule about such generalisations is they're generally false!

Anway, apart from the memory addressing issue, I am genuinely how the G5 will shape up in 64bit integer math vs (say) the G4. How significant will be the speed increase, or will it be entirely offset by the need to move data of twice the width around... Has anyone seen any benchmarks of 64bit int code? (Mathematica perhaps??)

Mike.
 
They very likely are getting machines with a minimum of a 160 gig hard drive, a CD-RW drive, and a Radeon 9600 Pro. Apple doesn't sell G5's without these 3.
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If you order 1100 brand new machines in an attempt to create one of the top 5 clusters then Apple will do whatever you want.

Then they'll send some photographers round.


As to those who whine about having their machine delayed so VTcan get theirs:

A) 1100 machines is hardly going to cause much of a hold up compared to the total number ordered.

B) The VT machines are likely to be a custom spec and thus not come from the standard consumer supply.

C) The VT order was probably made before the G5 was announced -- they probably went round compaies to see who could meet the deadline. When they asked Apple (I'm guessing they expected X-Serve clusters) Apple said yes we have something special for you too. In other words their order was probably the very first so don't gripe about the fact that you won't get yours untill after them.
 
europe first??

According to hardmac.com (english version of macbidouille.com), the G5 could be delivered first in Europe.... as Apple Assembly Line in Corck (Ireland) is designed for PowerMac.
let's wait and see
 
Re: europe first??

Originally posted by eric67
According to hardmac.com (english version of macbidouille.com), the G5 could be delivered first in Europe.... as Apple Assembly Line in Corck (Ireland) is designed for PowerMac.
let's wait and see
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apple manufactures its equipment in Europe? really?
 
Or may be Steve wanted VT to set them up...films it in action and shows it off in Paris :)

Originally posted by ImAlwaysRight
So why in the world can't VT wait a month to receive their 1100 computers and instead the masses who ordered first receive their computers first? What is the rush? Like one month will make a difference to them. I'm sure it makes more of a difference to the 1100 or so individuals who are waiting on their PowerMacs because of this order. And you can't tell me VT placed their huge order the day these G5's were announced. It takes more than a few hours to receive approval for a purchase of that size. :mad:

ADDITION: What will win more people to Mac platform, actually SEEING friends, professionals, etc. using PowerMac G5's, or hearing news about 1100 G5's being used in a cluster? How many people are actually going to cluster 1100 computers? Probably none.

So to me it is better for Apple to get G5's in the hands of everyday people and make the cluster wait their turn. Also, Apple can still benefit from ANNOUNCING that VT has a huge order which would be fulfilled later in Sept. for a supercluster. So I don't understand why this is such a great move on Apple's part.

I would imagine this order was placed late July when Apple changed their shipping time from "August" to "7-10 weeks". As I said before, a purchase this size would not have been decided overnight.
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Re: Re: europe first??

Originally posted by shadowfax
apple manufactures its equipment in Europe? really?
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AFAIK, all desktops destined for the European market are assembled in Cork. I'd be surprised if the plant was supplying the US's needs as well - unless they needed extra help in keeping up with US demand?

Mike.
 
Originally posted by PHGN
If you order 1100 brand new machines in an attempt to create one of the top 5 clusters then Apple will do whatever you want.
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within reason - the G5 is the only serial ATA machine Apple sells - the 160 gig drive is the smallest serial ATA drive they offer. I highly doubt VT had Apple custom ordered 1100 smaller drives instead of going with the 160 gig drive Apple already uses in production. That'd just be more trouble than it's worth. maybe they cut out the optical drive and/or the video card to cut costs - it still doesn't make the machines hard to sell to students in a year.

I'm sure if VT goes to Apple and says we'd like to order 1100 of your latest machines to upgrade our cluster, Apple would also sell them superdrives and video cards for the machines they're replacing so VT can sell them to students.

If I were designing a cluster like this, I'd have to think strongly about designing it to be easily upgradable, and selling through the machines to students significantly cuts the effective upgrade costs.

I do agree with the other thing you said - these machines are going to have a negligible impact on the delivery of other machines.
 
VT couldn't wait another month. They clearly would have gone with a different system to meet their deadline had they been told they would have to wait for Apple. They can't change the start of the school year.
 
Originally posted by alandail
2 - suppose they already plan to replace the cluster with dual 3 GHz machines next fall so they will still be top 5. They very likely are getting machines with a minimum of a 160 gig hard drive, a CD-RW drive, and a Radeon 9600 Pro. Apple doesn't sell G5's without these 3. If the intent is to upgrade the cluster each year it makes a lot more sense to order desktops than XServes because of the resale to student value.
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This is a special order. Apple may very well sell G5's without these 3 if it's a special order.

That said, it would be expensive to build a brand new cluster every year. These things are supposed to last awhile :)
 
home clustering??

I think to do so would be signifigantly more effort than easily justifiable.

However... people do silly things all the time for the sole purpose of seeing if they can. I'm sure there is some way.... but for Joe/Jill Average Person... unjustifiable effort
 
Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
I don't think there's any convenient "cluster your computers at home" system in any case.
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I've got Linux clustering at home (4 computers) Very Easy. (and free!!)
 
Originally posted by legion
I've got Linux clustering at home (4 computers) Very Easy. (and free!!)
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How'd you do it? Would it work for Macs?

Originally posted by AidenShaw
What do you think a cluster is, and why would you think that it would be a useful thing for 2 computers at home?
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A group of computers combined together to make them faster. And it would be useful as it gradually gets bigger when I buy more computers.
 
"clusters" are for "cluster applications"

Originally posted by XnavxeMiyyep
A group of computers combined together to make them faster. And it would be useful as it gradually gets bigger when I buy more computers.
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But only software written explicitly for a cluster will see any improvement. The application has to break the workflow up into separate pieces, and send each piece to a separate node for processing, then put all the results together.

It won't make Photoshop or FCP or Quake or any of the programs that you likely are running now any faster.
 
Mac Clustering

XnavxeMiyyep:

The machines do indeed need to talk to each other. The required speed of this communication channel is totally dependent on the nature of the parallel application you intend to run. Some programs can be "parallel-ized" such that very little data need be transmitted between the nodes performing the computations, while other codes are structured such that high-bandwidth interconnects are required to pass data back and forth. So, yes you will need to network the computers in some way to form the cluster. :)

cocoa_nut
 
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