[oclug] [OT] supercomputers

[Robert Brockway]

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003, Rod Giffin wrote:

> http://www.top500.org/list/2003/11/
>
> The big news in this years top 500 supercomputer list is Virginia Tech
> sitting at spot #3 using Macintosh G5 PowerPC's.  The cluster, called
> simply X does nothing to satiate my severe case of G5 envy.
>
> 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

Hi.  Judging by the above paragraph, not sure if you realise #3, which you
mention above, is running on Linux.  Read an article on it yesterday...

http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=5007

The Lustre clustering FS looks interesting too.

> 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

I bet.  I think we can expect an ever increasing proportion of the list to
come from comodity hardware in the years to come.  There are power issues
over and above the "big iron" boxes but I can't see this disuading anyone
from saving millions of $$.

Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert at timetraveller.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net
Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org)
"The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah