Do you guys know how people use clusters? Any idea?
Number one, most software includes some sort of error-correction, whether it is "dumb" (relying on previous-step data) or "smart" (self-checking algorithms which are independent of memory). ECC is nice, but gravy.
Second, noone is going to hog all 2200 procs at once. Batching, queuing and priorities all factor in here. What Big Mac does is allows more people to do more work, all at once.
Third, I guarantee the end users won't tolerate this thing being disassembled and re-built, even a year from now. I suspect most end users won't be up to speed on it until well after Christmas. This is even assuming that there are no glitches in s/w implementation, communication and/or training.
Another thing I didn't see mentioned re: Infiniband is its extremely low latency. This is a huge issue. 1000 ether would be fine for 90% of end users if its latency were much less. For communication-critical s/ws like QCD, however, this was a no-brainer, even with the additional time involved. Someone mentioned this additional assembly time as a hassle. Are you kidding me? going from delivery to assembly through testing an ready for real work in what, less than 8 weeks is insane. Simply exemplary. People who build and use clusters are frankly speechless over what VT did, even w/o the cost issues.
as i said - i don't believe this... this would be a waste of money for VT. do you think they're that stupid? me not.
No I don't. And once again what I have posted (quotes) all came from the MacNN post (which I linked to above). It doesn't make sense to me that they would spend $5 million on a solution that they wouldn't really want just because the opteron solution would have cost more. You get what you need.
But on the other hand, the quote from the Director at VT was on an emailing list, so I really doubt it is fake. Believe what you want about the rest, but if he says they are going to ECC soon, I believe that.
Someone mentioned this additional assembly time as a hassle. Are you kidding me? going from delivery to assembly through testing an ready for real work in what, less than 8 weeks is insane. Simply exemplary. People who build and use clusters are frankly speechless over what VT did, even w/o the cost issues.
I got a good laugh out of that criticism too. If you're spending millions of dollars on your new toy, is the cost of labour to initially set it up really all that significant?
I got a good laugh out of that criticism too. If you're spending millions of dollars on your new toy, is the cost of labour to initially set it up really all that significant?
Time, not labor. Labor was free. And gladly given, I'm sure.
Of course given the visibility that this has given Apple, I'm sure that they've invited their new favourite professor over to their labs to look at the new upcoming toys. Given the rumoured Xgrid as well, my guess is that they've been planning server machines (i.e. Xserves) which are G5-based, use ECC memory, and can use InfiniBand. If these are coming any time in the next 6 months I think this qualifies as "soon", and that could mean 90nm 970s... at higher clock rates.
Technology marches on, and staying in the top 3 supercomputers requires diligence and a large pocketbook.
Comments
Number one, most software includes some sort of error-correction, whether it is "dumb" (relying on previous-step data) or "smart" (self-checking algorithms which are independent of memory). ECC is nice, but gravy.
Second, noone is going to hog all 2200 procs at once. Batching, queuing and priorities all factor in here. What Big Mac does is allows more people to do more work, all at once.
Third, I guarantee the end users won't tolerate this thing being disassembled and re-built, even a year from now. I suspect most end users won't be up to speed on it until well after Christmas. This is even assuming that there are no glitches in s/w implementation, communication and/or training.
Another thing I didn't see mentioned re: Infiniband is its extremely low latency. This is a huge issue. 1000 ether would be fine for 90% of end users if its latency were much less. For communication-critical s/ws like QCD, however, this was a no-brainer, even with the additional time involved. Someone mentioned this additional assembly time as a hassle. Are you kidding me? going from delivery to assembly through testing an ready for real work in what, less than 8 weeks is insane. Simply exemplary. People who build and use clusters are frankly speechless over what VT did, even w/o the cost issues.
Originally posted by Krassy
as i said - i don't believe this... this would be a waste of money for VT. do you think they're that stupid? me not.
No I don't. And once again what I have posted (quotes) all came from the MacNN post (which I linked to above). It doesn't make sense to me that they would spend $5 million on a solution that they wouldn't really want just because the opteron solution would have cost more. You get what you need.
But on the other hand, the quote from the Director at VT was on an emailing list, so I really doubt it is fake. Believe what you want about the rest, but if he says they are going to ECC soon, I believe that.
Originally posted by machem
Someone mentioned this additional assembly time as a hassle. Are you kidding me? going from delivery to assembly through testing an ready for real work in what, less than 8 weeks is insane. Simply exemplary. People who build and use clusters are frankly speechless over what VT did, even w/o the cost issues.
I got a good laugh out of that criticism too. If you're spending millions of dollars on your new toy, is the cost of labour to initially set it up really all that significant?
Originally posted by Chagi
I got a good laugh out of that criticism too. If you're spending millions of dollars on your new toy, is the cost of labour to initially set it up really all that significant?
Time, not labor. Labor was free. And gladly given, I'm sure.
Technology marches on, and staying in the top 3 supercomputers requires diligence and a large pocketbook.
It's not like Infiniband is the per se standard for clustering, nor are these interfaces anything cheap.
The only thing I can imagine is Apple offering interface cards as BTO in the future.
G-News
Originally posted by G-News
I seriously doubt that Apple is going to equip their machines with Infiniband interfaces per default anytime soon.
All they have to offer, as I understand it, is a PCI-X slot or equivalent. If the customer wants Infiniband, they can help themselves.
That notwithstanding, I'm sure Apple is keenly interested in the driver that was custom written for that card VA Tech used...