[oclug] [OT] supercomputers

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Sun, Nov 16, 2003 at 10:49:28AM -0500, Rod Giffin wrote:
> Linux is still well represented: in the top 10, Linux is used at least
> for 3 of the supercomputers at 4th, 6th and 7th. I'm not entirely sure
> what OS is being used by some of the other entries.   But look at #14. 
> China?  Now there's a Great Leap Forward.

5  	Pacific Northwest	Mpp2					8633
	National Laboratory 	Integrity rx2600 Itanium2 1.5 GHz,	11616 
	United States/2003	Quadrics / 1936 HP 

That one's running Linux (and if it has problems, one of my colleagues
is on the hook to fix it).  Ditto #25 and #77 (and I know which Energy
Companies they are, and I'm not saying :-P)

I believe SGI's Altix only runs Linux, so #41, #98, #99 and #100 also
run Linux.  I can't be bothered to delve deeper than the top100.

> There is one thing to note though, about the list.  The Linux based
> supercomputers tend to use commodity based PC architecture (some are
> based on 64-bit some on 32-bit), and probably cost a lot less to run
> than any of the others in their vicinity on the list.  It's one thing to
> be blazingly fast, but quite another to not break the bank doing it.

The thing about clusters is that you start to *really* care about MTBF.
If you have a MTBF of 10 years and 2000 units, you're replacing a unit
every 2 days.  Clusters are great, but they're not a panacea.  You
also care about power consumption and aircon ;-)

-- 
"It's not Hollywood.  War is real, war is primarily not about defeat or
victory, it is about death.  I've seen thousands and thousands of dead bodies.
Do you think I want to have an academic debate on this subject?" -- Robert Fisk