Posted on 09/06/2003 1:10:51 PM PDT by Boss_Jim_Gettys
Using several new technologies and more than 1,000 dual-processor Power Mac G5 computers, Virginia Tech University is building a supercomputer cluster that is likely to rank among the fastest in the world.
In addition to the G5 machines, the university said it is using a beta version of the latest release of OS X, new networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco, and cutting-edge configuration and cooling technologies to build the powerful cluster for a fraction of the price of a traditional supercomputer.
"The total price tag is probably a factor of 10 lower than a machine in this class in the past," Virginia Tech College of Engineering dean Hassan Aref told TechNewsWorld. "Virginia Tech's idea was to develop a supercomputer of national prominence based upon a homegrown cluster."
Aref, who indicated the project is under pressure to submit computing speed numbers by October to be considered among the world's fastest supercomputers, said the cluster represents the use of five new technologies.
In addition to the latest Mac operating system and dual 2-GHz Power Mac G5 machines, which Apple touts as the fastest desktop computers in the world, the cluster will use several technologies from other vendors: "brand new" networking hardware from Mellanox and Cisco; a new high-density rackmounted cooling system from Liebert; and new software that will enable the cluster to "run big jobs," according to Aref. The university said the cluster will use 1,100 dual-processor G5s. They will be clustered using 64-bit Infiniband semiconductor technology from Mellanox, which will provide the primary communications fabric, drivers, cards and switches. Cisco's Gigabit Ethernet switches also will be used as the secondary communications fabric to interconnect the cluster.
Aref said the larger number of machines will mean greater access to and more projects for the supercomputing cluster, which will be used for research on nanoscale electronics, quantum chemistry, computational chemistry, aerodynamics and molecular modeling of proteins, among other work.
Aref also said the distributed terascale cluster will mark a new level of stability and discovery.
"We think running a cluster of this size in a sustained, stable mode for a long time is quite unique," he said. "It will allow calculations that have been difficult on other clusters and allow us to peer into a new level of research."
Virginia Tech said the supercomputer's construction came about through weekly conference calls between the various players and included international expertise from Japan and Israel as well as input from university staff and students.
Aref said that despite concerns about U.S. slippage in the supercomputer environment, the Virginia Tech project highlights American expertise and technology. "What we're really working off of is this grassroots expertise," he said.
The Virginia Tech project comes less than a month after Los Alamos National Laboratory announced deals for Linux supercomputing clusters. The latest announcement highlights the departure from monolithic mainframe supercomputing to less expensive, grid-like configurations, Yankee Group senior analyst Dana Gardner told TechNewsWorld.
"This is further evidence of going away from symmetrical multiprocessing mainframes and moving more to a distributed grid of relatively low-cost nodes," he said.
Gardner, who said OS X's BSD kernel roots and Linux and Unix heritage make it ideal for the Virginia Tech cluster, indicated the key to the newer grid approach is the technology layer above systems.
"Distributed networks of resources have a great potential to solve problems with the efficiency of lower-cost individual units," he said. "How resources are managed becomes the key."
On September 4 an informational session was held at Virginia Tech giving details on the system. A synopsis can be found at MacRumors.
It is interesting that the Power Mac G5 system was chosen purely on a cost vs. performance basis over competing systems from Dell, Sun, IBM and HP.
It will also be interesting to see how this beast compares to the PNNL supercomputer cluster based on Itanium2 processors (posted here) once it gets cranked up in October/November.
No Intel, no AMD, no Penguin!
"It will allow calculations that have been difficult on other clusters and allow us to peer into a new level of research."Quite right. Peer into, but never enter in any real or productive way. You'll always be a tourist, because you're using macintosh.
Well, with the new G5 I'm on the Concorde and you're flying coach in a 707!
Oh, and in the arena of cluster supercomputers, it looks like my airfare is about half what you paid!
Come on in and gloat.
G5 Power Mac, the fastest and most cost-effective personal computer.
Not for a while. Micro$oft does not have a G5-compatible version of Virtual PC.
"Currently, Virtual PC 6.1 does not run on the Power Mac G5," Microsoft's Sandra Peignaux told Macworld UK. Users attempting to install the Windows emulation software will get an error message, saying: "This application is not supported by the CPU." Peignaux said "Virtual PC relies on a feature of the G3/G4 processors called 'pseudo little-endian mode' for increased performance when emulating a Pentium processor." Because the G5 processor does not support this feature, "much of the program will have to be rewritten to work on G5's." Support for the new Power Macs will be introduced in a future release, she confirmed. No timeframe was given for the update."
I guess they don't want a Mac to emulate a PC faster than a PC!
I'll wait.
Thanks for the ping, but I'm not one of the 'Mac Faithful': I'm not a platform zealot whatsoever.
I recommend that you abandon platform zealotry too. It's an annoying and silly throwback to the 1990 mindset.
Sorry, it will take quite a bit of work to get this to run all the latest viruses.
Is this true?
Just so long as you guys don't call it "Orchard".
Did JMU score today, by any chance?
L
The University of Kentucky appears to have a definite lead with Purdue's expertise. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969204/posts and look up the work of Henry G. Deitz http://aggregate.org/hankd/ .
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.