SAPAC Unveils New Australian Supercomputer 227
Sean Burford writes "The South Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (SAPAC) has unveiled its new AU$1.7 Million supercomputer
named Hydra. It is an IBM 1350 Linux cluster with 126 compute nodes (xSeries 335), 1 head node (xSeries 335), 1 storage
node (xSeries 345) and 1 managment node (xSeries 345). Hydra has a peak theoretical performance of 1.2 Teraflops, and has currently benchmarked at 682 Gigaflops. The current benchmark
places it in the fastest three supercomputers in Australia and equivalent to the current number 80 in the world.
The cluster has a total of
258 2.4Ghz Intel Xeon processors and 258GB of RAM. SAPAC expects to achieve a benchmark closer to 700 Gigaflops with further tuning. Hydra is hosted at The University Of Adelaide, who already host a
40 node cluster of Sun e420 machines."
if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:5, Funny)
Mike
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:2)
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:1, Funny)
THAT'S NOT A COMPUTER, THAT'S A SPOON
Ay, I see you've played computer-spooney before!
Re:if I didn't, someone else would have.... (Score:2, Insightful)
but is it... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:but is it... (Score:2)
Re:but is it... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:but is it... (Score:1)
Not bad for an AC!
Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2, Interesting)
258, hm? Izzat metric or sump'n? Maybe it's like that feet/metres thing with that Mars probe. Or is it like how AMD numbers their chip speeds? Is it a Southern hemisphere localised effect perhaps?
When someone explains this to me I'm going to feel mighty small. Possibly 1/258 of my current stature.
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:1, Flamebait)
In Australia, even 2^8 is bigger.
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2)
Getting smarter, are we?
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Arrogant?
I think you're forgetting who got all upset about a few building falling over and then got retribution by forging evidence of 'Wigwams of Masturbation' and blackmailing the rest of the world into supporting an illegal invasion of a defenseless country. All for your stupid American pride.
So who is touchy?
And arrogant?
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2)
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2, Informative)
129 nodes * 2GB = 258GB (actually 129 * 2048MB)
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:5, Interesting)
But I suspect as far as the ram goes that the 258 gigs is 256 - but counting 1k as 1000 instead of 1024. (or possibly 1M as 10^6 instead of 1048576)
Haven't you noticed the difference between what a vendor says is the size of a HDD compared to how many gigs you actually get when you put it in your PC?
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:1)
I think I'll stick to posting during the daytime from now on. A number of other people responding right now might need some sleep as much as I do - people sure get cranky in these wee hours!
Yeah I'm aware of the 10^3 versus 2^10 difference. My 80Gb drive fromatted to 76Gb or so.
Anyway, thanks for the explanation.
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2, Interesting)
126 Nodes + 1 Head Node + 1 Storage Node + 1 Management Node = 129 Nodes total
129 Nodes total * 2Gb ram per node = 258Gb ram for the cluster
Re:Australian rules powers of 2^38B or what? (Score:2, Interesting)
- read through the whole linked article
- opened a spreadsheet and tried to figure it out a couple of ways (failed miserably - it's been a long day)
- searched for more information but mostly just found photographs and old presentations
258=129*2 . Ah, yes I see now.
Thanks for pointing out one of my character flaws though. Not laziness, but can't put 129 and 2 together.
Is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
A computer faster than this is born every two weeks.
Re:Is this news? (Score:1)
Re:Is this news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at the latest top 500 list [top500.org] this would put it as the third most powerful 'self-made' system in the world. For that reason I think it deserves at least a mention and add the relatively low cost and you've got a
Re:Is this news? (Score:4, Informative)
I disagree. Hydra would qualify as "IBM made" as it uses a standard network of standard IBM machines. For comparison, the top 'self-made' computer, Sandia's Cplant Cluster, was built by the lab from off the shelf components, wired together by custom drivers written by the engineers at Sandia.
If the thrust of this story was an amazing $AU/tflop ratio, it didn't come across at all in the summary.
Link (Score:2)
Re:Is this news? (Score:3, Insightful)
For $1M you could buy a load of computers, sure. But what is the cost of a building to put them in? A while ago I did some consulting for a major telco/colo provider. Their single biggest expense was electricity to run their air conditioning and dehumidifiers. It cost more than renting the building. They were seriously considering buying a utility company to get a better rate on electricity. Also on the cards was a reloca
But... it's South Australia (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:But... it's South Australia (Score:2)
Well done.
Re:But... it's South Australia (Score:2)
Re:But... wtf are you on about (Score:2)
http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/sabill.html
Press Interview.... (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Australian joke thread (Score:2, Funny)
--Pat
The irony of it all. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet, Australia has outlawed any form of corporal or capital punishment, but the US still lets teachers hit kids and kills people with death sentences. This isn't the pot calling the kettle black, it's the pot calling the fine cutlery black.
Australia has sane, civilised laws. The USA kills people, hits people, and arms its citizens to the teeth with guns.
Ah, the irony of it all.
Re:The irony of it all. (Score:2, Offtopic)
But yeah, we do cook people.
[/completely offtopic]
Re:The irony of it all. (Score:2, Interesting)
Geez, it was a cartoon. A parody. A caricature. The great thing about the Simpsons is that no group is spared from their biting satire.
Remember this is the same cartoon that shows that all nuclear workers are inept and cause meltdowns all the time. The same show whose police force can't find sand on a beach, where the male father character spends most of his time drinking in a bar, and school children eat exerci
By crikey mate this specimen is enormous... (Score:5, Funny)
It is very, very dangerous.
Look at the size of the heatsink on that one!
And this buggers attck fast. And I mean real fast.
Crikey!
GB vs. MB (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it me or anyone else misread it as "256MB"?
Actually, misreading it lead me to think about a mainframe at my college, which was an SGI with 12 processors and 512MB of memory.
The thing is, though - when I first went in the college, we were all like "WOW that's a lot of system resources." When I got out four years later I was carrying that much memory on my laptop...
breakneck speeds, man.
However, regardless - (with all due respect) why is this such a big deal that australia limped to #80 on the fastest computer list? didn't other linux clusters break teraflops quite a long time ago? EarthSim was neat because it put THAT much more distance between another country and the US (and nearly nobody saw it coming) - but this seems to me hardly news, besides the possible "one of the fastest computer in australia runs linux," or something...
Re:GB vs. MB (Score:2)
and if you think about it, most "normal" people (and i use the term loosely) only carry about 256MB or that there RAM.
compensating for something? (Score:5, Funny)
Aww that's nothing. Last place I worked everybody - including the janitorial staff, had their own robotic assistants modeled after Natalie Portman, and the personal computers everyone used for were liquid nitrogen cooled Cray with 295 GaAs based processors, and just over half a TB of memory pre system. That and the computers were connected to dual 40" OLED panels capable of 3640x2400 resolution each at 1500:1 contrast. Every system had neurological with supplimental eye-tracking input systems so you can think about moving the cursor in the 3D desktop and it would be done before you finished thinking about it. And that's only the computer for just reading and writing email! you should see the stuff we used for application development and integration testing. Pff.
Re:compensating for something? (Score:2)
You're lying!
That was in Swordfish!
How long... (Score:5, Funny)
42.
Re:How long... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:How long... (Score:2)
Sad thing is... (Score:1, Troll)
What do you get... (Score:2)
Re:How long... (Score:2)
Source of 42 FYI (Score:2)
Re:How long... (Score:5, Informative)
So go read the book! Now! Meanwhile, to whet your whistle, and explain the 42 reference, here are the pertinant excerpts from Hitchhiker's guide:
Chapter 25: There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?
Many many millions of years ago a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings (whose physical manifestation in their own pan-dimensional universe is not dissimilar to our own) got so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life which used to interrupt their favourite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent reason and then running away) that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all.
And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before the data banks had been connected up it had started from I think therefore I am and got as far as the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off.
It was the size of a small city.
Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahagony topped with rich ultrared leather. The dark carpeting was discreetly sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square.
On the day of the Great On-Turning two soberly dressed programmers with brief cases arrived and were shown discreetly into the office. They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk, opened their brief cases and took out their leather-bound notebooks.
Their names were Lunkwill and Fook.
For a few moments they sat in respectful silence, then, after exchanging a quiet glance with Fook, Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel.
The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode. After a pause it spoke to them in a voice rich resonant and deep.
It said: "What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought, the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space have been called into existence?"
[...]
"O Deep Thought Computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us
"The answer?" said Deep Thought. "The answer to what?"
"Life!" urged Fook.
"The Universe!" said Lunkwill.
"Everything!" they said in chorus.
Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.
"Tricky," he said finally.
"But can you do it?"
Again, a significant pause.
"Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it."
"There is an answer?" said Fook with breathless excitement."
"A simple answer?" added Lunkwill.
"Yes," said Deep Thought. "Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But," he added, "I'll have to think about it."
[...]
Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.
"How long?" he said.
"Seven and a half million years," said Deep Thought.
[... skip ahead to chapter 27, seven a
Re:How long... (Score:2)
What? No T-Mobile Sidekick cluster yet? (Score:2)
Dolemite
____________________
yeah but (Score:5, Funny)
Life in the fast lane.... (Score:5, Funny)
Explanation (Score:1, Informative)
The state government where this is housed has decided that anyone doing over 3km/hour over the posted speed limit, is fair game for speed cameras and fines.
Re:Explanation (Score:2)
Re:And Adelaide is considered to be slow anyway... (Score:2)
Its time... (Score:2, Informative)
Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:3, Interesting)
The per-clock performance on an Athlon is much better than what you'll get from a P4 based Xeon, and that is just on integer. When it comes to floating-point performance a lower clocked Athlon will meet or beat the performance of a higher-clocked P4.
Right now the only SMP chipset for the Athlons is the 761, which is several years old and lacks dual-channel capability. It also requires the use of registered ECC memory. If the Athlon's had an SMP chipset comparable to the NForce2 or Intel's 775 then it would be a very different story.
Right now the going rate on pricewatch for an Athlon 3000 is only $10 more than a 2.4 Ghz Xeon, and it would spank that Xeon on floating point which is exactly what is important for a supercomputer.
I hope that the clustering technology they're using makes good use of SMP systems because if it doesn't then they may very well have misspent their money.
Lee
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, Athlon is not faster than the P4 Xeons at double precision floating point. Double precision is frequently required for scientific computing and is used in the Linpack benchmark for the top500.
The current dual Athlon chipset is the 760MPX. The Intel i7501 is the preferred chipset for dual P4. It supports dual channel ECC DDR ram and the 533MHz FSB. These days, nobody wants non-ECC ram for a top 500 cluster. It's not that much more expensive these days compared to decently rated non-ECC ram.
Then there's the cost of air conditioning 258 Athlons...
I'd say they made the right decision.
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:5, Interesting)
We're just a few days from bringing up a 300 processor cluster [vanderbilt.edu] of the exact same type of computers they are using, so maybe I can shed some light. There are several reasons for picking Xeons over Athlons at the moment.
1. If your app uses double precision floating point, and you can recompile your app using SSE2, an Intel will easily beat the AMD. AMD does scalar floating point operations faster per clock. Intel does vector flops faster. Most interesting real-world problems use vector flops.
2. Memory bandwidth. Most chipsets can only deliver a fraction of their theoretical bandwidth. I've seen speed differences of 25% running code on identically configured machines, one having Intel E7500 and the other with a ServerWorks GC-LE (the ServerWorks smokes...) And those are *good* chipsets. I have yet to see an Athlon chipset that wasn't crap.
3. Managability. The x335's are pretty damned slick. I *love* the built-in KVM switch and remote diagnostics. You can daisy chain north of 21 nodes together (I think 35!) and you just have one cable coming off of them.
4. Total cost of ownership. Our previous p3 cluster was assembled (before I arrived) from Pricewatch parts. We initially experienced a 25% failure rate on memory, and spend an inordinate amount of time fixing random problems. 40 of the p3 nodes takes more than three times as much administrator time as 160 IBM x335's. Spending an extra $50,000 on good, quality parts is cheaper than hiring a competent sysadmin. Don't "efficient" yourself to death.
Having said all that, I'm *really* looking forward to Opteron. We're getting some in a week or so. 64 bit + SSE2 support is going hard to beat.
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:2)
This is -specifically- why I'm waiting until the next Opteron stepping before specing out our next cluster.
The current rig is P4 Xeons (1.8GHz), and is "ok" performance wise, but that's ok, since it was more a "proof of concept" type of thing than a real install *heh*
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:4, Informative)
The per-clock performance on an Athlon is much better than what you'll get from a P4 based Xeon, and that is just on integer. When it comes to floating-point performance a lower clocked Athlon will meet or beat the performance of a higher-clocked P4.
What you see as an advantage for the Athlon is actually a disadvantage.
The Athlon is trying to do too much per clock and this limits its maximum clock rate. What matters is realized performance. Right now, less work at a higher clock seems to be pulling ahead.
It really comes down to how large you can make the product (work x clock rate). Less per clock isn't bad if it means you can greatly increase clock rate.
Re:Why aren't they using Athlons? (Score:2)
They were IBM xSeries boxes - they don't (that I'm aware of) offer a x86 version with AMD. Had this been sponsered by someone who did do AMD servers, you would have seen Athlons in there. This was an IBM gig - and they had xeon's in inventory. Not a bad bit of kit, btw...
You are correct about the floating point, however. For chipsets, look for the AMD-8131 in boards like this [msi.com.tw]. Most of the new workstation class boards from AMD will be based on the Opteron
The thing is... (Score:4, Funny)
Difference? (Score:2)
Re:Difference? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Difference? (Score:2)
Cluster users connect to this node to kick off their jobs onto the rest of the cluster. Basically, it's the enduser accessible machine.
Management node: cluster monitoring tools, image server, etc.
On a -small- cluster (16 or 32 nodes, although 32 is pushing it, IMHO), the head and management nodes are typically the same machine. There really isn't a need for there to be more than that, as it's fairly quick and easy to monitor all of 32 machines. On larger clusters (64/128/etc), it starts becom
Press Release (Score:2, Funny)
IBM reports that the Univeristy of Adelaide has returned its recently purchased IBM 1350 Linux cluster.
According to Mr. Ian B. Myers, an IBM technician, the cluster landed on the doorstep at White Plains, NY with a note attached reading "This bloody thing doesn't work". On testing, it was discovered that every node had been named bruce...
Re:Press Release (Score:1)
Couple of other details not in the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Couple of other details not in the article (Score:1)
But it does sound more like Adelaide
This kind of articles just makes me think (Score:1)
Benchmark and interconnects? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmmmm (Score:2)
Either that or they're loaning it to New Zealand to study and see if banning intercourse with sheep increases their country's population.
I somehow suspect the latter.
Frame Rate (Score:1)
even more! (Score:2, Interesting)
Japan's Earth Simulator Center [jamstec.go.jp] has 10 TB of main memory and the theoretical performance of 40Tflops!
quite a system and definetely worth checking out.
Coming in Third Means What? (Score:2)
teraflops? (Score:2, Funny)
*sigh*
its the end of the week and I'm going home in four minutes. What is this crap? In other news, Germany has built the 90th largest ship in the world, the US has finished construction on the thirteenth smallest... you get the idea.
Cluster this and cluster that (Score:2)
Put Apache on it and we'll /. it in mere seconds.
of course being aussie ... (Score:2)
The University of Adelaide... (Score:5, Informative)
This couldn't be further from the truth. Ask the postgraduates, who have Mac LCIIs and 486-DX33s on their desks (I kid you not). Ask the academics, who have been retrenched in recent years (in some facultis, 25% of academic staff lost their jobs because of the university's financial problems), ask the users of its library, which has HUGE funding problems.
Whilst the new machine may be very nice and have some power, the University of Adelaide really sees it only as a PR campaign (hell, it even made it to Slashdot!), rather than anything significant for the sake of scientific advancement - okay, the researchers, who will use it may have a different opinion, but not the University iself.
Re:The University of Adelaide... (Score:2)
Hey, I take offense. Ausatralian beer is OK, english girls are fucking awesome (what is that cute kurvy cook-girl we see on the ABC?), and german music is great (Alex deLarge, Ramstein)
Re:The University of Adelaide... (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, I take offense
Oh wait, there is no teaching in astrophysics as Swinburne, we just steal all the postgrad students from the other universities.
Re:In Hell... (Score:2)
Australia's fastest supercomputer... (Score:2, Informative)
Reason for the funny number, mate... (Score:3, Funny)
The number between 5 and 7 may not be spoken here because of its similarity (when spoken with a New Zealand accent) with a certain act often carried out between mammals.
In fact a whole new mathematical system is being developed (based on pictograms) to avoid political insensitivities in the Land where legislation has been passed to the effect that children access the internet, and so the internet must not contain content (including numbers) that might corrupt the young.
The pictogram for the number that dare not speak its name is an image of two trees. (tree and tree is s.x).
Similarly, three trees with 'watermarks' (evidence of the recent passing of puppydogs with full bladders) represents the number 99. (dirty tree + dirty tree + dirty tree = 99).
The same pictogram with underscores (here called doggy doo-doos) represents 100.
(dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd...)
Besides, our new supercomputer sure beats the 286 we've had to share for the last 10 years! Them Y2K problems are getting to be a real pain!
Supercomputers (Score:2, Interesting)
What is the theoretical speed of 0 latency for computations?
This may seem like a stupid question, but I never heard once in star trek them saying our computer is such and such fast. They must have reached a limit that allowed them almost instant computation.
So what would that be in our measured terms however primitive they might be in the longterm outcome of our computers?
10000 Ghz? 1 Million ghz?
I dont know,
any biters on this bait?
Re:Supercomputers (Score:2)
Supercomputers are usually rated in FLOPS like this one is in the article. FLOPS = FLoating Point Operations per Second. So, it's the number of calculations it can do per second. More processors means more theoretical FLOPS. The speed will stop mattering when we can simulate the entire universe in real-time. At which point, I imagine, the universe will stop mattering.
This has nothing to do with Ghz. Processor speed is irrelevant insofar as the speed of calculations is what really matters.
Go Oz... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Go Oz... (Score:2, Informative)
I Call you out, you are not an Aussie, for fucks sake mate, no aussie will willingly drink fosters beer, let alone in cans, and those that do, well they revoked their citizenship.
They'¨ve got it all (Score:2)
Supercomupters and Olympic Arnold Schwarzeneger stadiums (in Graz).
We have already done it :-) (Score:2)
CDAC of India already has developed 1T flops super computers [business-standard.com] based on SUN Ultrasparc-II cpus. The system has primary storage capacity of 5 TB. The communication backbone can be any of CDAC's own PARAMNet at a peak bandwidth of 50 MB/s bi-directional, Myrinet at 160 MB/s, ATM at 155/622 Mb/s, or Fast Ethernet.
Currently work is going on to make a 10T Flop grid across country linking all premiere research and educational institutes and industrial establishments.
1.2 teraops is puny! (Score:2)
Dialogue (Score:2)
Bruce: Yeah, Bruce - how about this bonzer cluster of Xeons over here?
Bruce: Nah - it'll never work - it's only 1.2 teraflops, and the cooling system sucks.
Bruce: Yeah - you're right there, mate - we'd better go with the Cray again. All that Freon sure keeps the tinnies cool.
Bruce: Now that's what I call a sheepacomputer.
Re:imagine (Score:2)
Crikey, mate! Imagine a beowolf cluster of these doolallies!
Mike
Re:imagine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:imagine (Score:2)
Back to topic, though - is this thing even close to Weta's cluster performance?
Re:How to get laid on the first date (808 State) (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Sun? (Score:2)