Army Contractor To Build A 1566 Xserve Cluster

olePigeon (Wik) writes "MacCentral has an interesting article on a new computer cluster. From the article: 'Apple Computer Inc. will announce on Monday the sale of 1566 dual processor 1U rack-mount 64-bit Xserve G5 servers to COLSA Corp., which will be used to build what is expected to be one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The US$5.8 million cluster will be used to model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight for the U.S. Army.'" alset_tech was one of the many readers to point to CNET's version of the story.

Artillery shells, rockets, bullets...

[Anonymous Coward]

And other things that go boom.

They pretty much all go pretty fast through the atmosphere.

Re:Why the Army?

[DAldredge]

Not everything that flys is an aircraft. Think bombs, not planes.

Re:I don't follow the numbers

[mrklin]

The 1655 CPU cluster is expected to deliver 25 Tflops, while the Virginia Tech machine, with 1,100 CPU's (if I remember properly) is rated at 10 Tflops. What else is different? Are they using a different interconnect?

Had you read the article you would have known that thr Army machine is connected using standard gigabit ehternet whereas the Big Mac used Infiniband.

Since this is Slashdot you are par for the course.

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[account_deleted]

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$5.8 M is peanuts, maybe even peanut dust

[green pizza]

>> "US$5.8 million"

$5.8 M is absolute peanuts in terms of US Military budgets. You can't even buy replacement engines for a KC-135 (of which there are hundreds in service for various tasks) for $5.8M.

This purchase is segment of a drop in the bucket. It won't even make a dent on the balance sheet. Cutbacks and low funding in other areas is a result of the net picture (stemming from policy and tradition...)

Just be glad they didn't buy $58.0 M worth of Cray X1 or SGI Altix gear.

Re:Better then real life testing

[BigFire]

Well, sometimes, the only way to know something, is to do it.

Re:Torn between...

[Moofie]

The only solution to a violent world is to be better at violence than your neighbors.

There are zero societies on Earth that do not hew to this axiom.

Re:$5.8 M is peanuts, maybe even peanut dust

[kwishot]

$5.8m may be "peanuts" (and I am well aware of the fact) .... but if it were that simple .... why don't I have bullets? Why is the kevlar helmet I wear to combat the same one marines wore twenty-five years ago?

It's a political playground much larger than I can try to imagine...I'm just asking the simple question of where our priorities are.

Re:Not 1100 CPU's

[commodoresloat]

This one has 3132 CPUs.

1556 ????

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Not sure if this is a stupid question - but why 1556. It seems like a rather odd number. Is it budget or does this number of nodes work?

Re:$5.8 M is peanuts, maybe even peanut dust

[Anonymous Coward]

Pockets of the rich, the politicians & big business? I'm just guessing, but I'm thinking that's where the priorities lay.

Otherwise the richest 1% wouldn't be getting 51% of Bush's tax cut by 2010.

Just the facts sir.

I personally can't wait for the military coup in the USA in 2012 when Hilary gets elected and the forces say "Hell NO!"

Re:I don't follow the numbers

[laird]

"Had you read the article you would have known that thr Army machine is connected using standard gigabit ehternet whereas the Big Mac used Infiniband."

GigE is about 10x slower (for this type of networking, see http://www.infinicon.com/pdf/LSTCUG-2003-Final.pdf ) than Infiniband. That is, unless there's some sort of magic router involved, I don't see how GigE would make CPU's faster.

Perhaps they're measuring different applications, and the Army machine doesn't need much communications? Kinda an odd way to benchmark...

Re:True purpose

[strictnein]

But wait... how does that fit in with the right-wing-bush-enron-saudi-haliburton conspiracy? The bill cited was sponsored by a bunch of Dems. The only conspiracy I can smell is that a bunch of Dems want the topic of a draft to be out there in the press. Talk of a draft = bad press for the president.

Re:Why the Army?

[sdmacguru]

WTF? Aren't A-10's operated by the Army? They seem to be armed and fixed-wing. What's this 'not allowed' language? The Navy has planes, the Army has boats, the Air Force has trucks and the Marine Corps has one of everything.
Back to the original point, though, supersonic 'bombs' aren't too likely under any insignia, lest they start dropping them off of spaceshipone. Artillery shells or rockets, sure. Really big bullets, you bet. Not gravity bombs.

Cozzano

[crumbz]

COLSA is too similar to Cozzano from Interface by Stephen Bury aka Neil Stephenson for my liking. This is a great time to re-read that book.

Re:Torn between...

[Usquebaugh]

Bollocks. Switzeland, Iceland have a different way.

Of course if you see violence as a solution then I guess thinking might be a bit of a novel concept.

Re:$5.8 M is peanuts, maybe even peanut dust

[kylemonger]

Not only do the wealthy fund the programs with their taxes, they also use the least government services.

Er, no. Government is what keeps society civil. Who has the most to lose if civilization breaks down, the guy living hand-to-mouth, owning little other than the clothes on his back and other depreciating assets, or the guy whose has land, stocks and intellectual property, assets that are worth little to nothing without government's ability to defend his ownership of them? Government might be keeping the poor guy alive but it is keeping the rich guy alive and rich.

Re:True purpose

[theRG]

If you want to avoid more deaths of American soldiers in Iraq (845 so far and counting) [antiwar.com], then I suggest you don't vote for Bush in November.

Re:1556 ????

[binkzz]

I would assume they were counting TFlops, not processors. 25 TFlops might have needed 1566 processors by calculation, so they would go for 1566 processors.

Re:3132 processors

[OmniVector]

It only takes one mouse button to open the terminal

Switzerland and Iceland chose military strength.

[ArsSineArtificio]

Bollocks. Switzeland, Iceland have a different way.

Switzerland's way is... being better at violence than its neighbors. That's how it stayed neutral in the Second World War - even Hitler was afraid to invade the great mountain fortress.

Iceland's way is... being better at violence than its neighbors. It opted to join the most powerful military alliance in the world.

Re:Torn between...

[NeoSkandranon]

Nearly every last adult male in Switzerland does compulsory military service and knows how to operate a SIG assault rifle, does he not? I'd say that's going a fair way towards being better at violence than your neighbor.

Re:Torn between...

[ArsSineArtificio]

Part of the reason why Japan and Europe can be relatively pacifist is the implicit security guarantee from the US.

Yep. And decades of "we don't need to have an army" thinking in Europe has drifted into "nobody needs to have an army".

Re:True purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

wow.

i love politics when someone's views and logic are boiled down to a single sentence.

you guys are both homos.

kerry and bush are both fucking liars.

Re:Torn between...

[Moofie]

Iceland has no neighbors.

See my other post in this thread re: Switzerland.

Next?

Re:Torn between...

[bm_luethke]

The swiss also have the great threat of "All your money belong to us".

Few large nations are going to invade switzerland. Even should they want to then most of the rest of the world would retaliate. So you do not really have to be better at apllying violence than them. The only time it might is in another world war.

Small nations that may wish to do so need the swiss to keep thier money safe.

Add in the idea that if they are invaded that everyone will fire a shot and go home and you have the best case for someone that can be a pacifist.

Re:$5.8 M is peanuts, maybe even peanut dust

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pointless to talk in percentages. Start talking dollar figures. If the top 50% of people own 95% of the wealth, it's reasonable for them to be paying 95% of the taxes -- and even if that figure is lower some form of progressive taxation should be acceptable, there has to be some way for people to be able to work their way out of poverty.

Re:Torn between...

[4lex]

I guess your definition of "solution" depends on your definition of "problem". If the solution to a violent world is "to be better at violence than your neighbours", I guess you don't consider war itself a problem, only the war you happen to lose. (I indeed consider any war a major violence problem itself, and specially not a solution for violence.)

I mean, did you read your own words? If every society applies your axiom, trying to be better at violence than their neighbours... how exactly does the solution to a violent world appear? You would think the world would engage in a global arms race (and eventually a global war, as strategigy give rise to tactics). Is this a solution for a violent world? I honestly think I don't get your point.

Re:True purpose

[bm_luethke]

There is a real possibility of a targeted draft - has been for years.

As the military continues to become more high-tech it takes a greater and greater level of techinical skills to operate, especially at command centers. At some point it is going to become difficult to recuit those people (simply put, if 15% of the population has - or is capable of - the technical skills and the military needs 50% of it's troop to have them they must come from someplace).

I do not think it is in the next few years. But since sometime in the 90's (can't really specify a single point in time) it has been a possibility. Any large theater we may have to get invovled in may require this.

Though this has little to do with the current Iraq war and more to do with the shift the military has been taking.

But yes, as to what the vast majority of people refer to the "upcoming draft", it is what a few democrats have discussed as a talking point and a protest against the war. Others have picked up on it and it has changed to "Bush wants a draft". The military still turns down a certain percentage of the volunteers it recieves as they consider themselfs over staffed - especially in the realm of grunts as they need educated technical skills (and grunts are what armchair or retired generals are moaning about not having enough of). There will be no general draft until that is no longer true.

Re:That'll be a damn pretty thermodynamic simulato

[Dr. Spork]

I think the joke taps into the old image of boy-Bush and Daddy Cheney (played here by the colonel) who makes all the decisions in the house and keeps the boy out of trouble and looking presentable. Maybe you're too anti-Bush to get it. It requires seeing Bush as somebody who's not inherently evil, only because he is borderline retarded. He just gets manipulated into doing evil, but all he really wants is to play with trains and baseball cards, and shoot up "bad guys."

Re:Why the Army?

[nacturation]

But in the age of XP and 2000, you'd be lucky to get such stability from an OSX machine.

Well that's just begging for a rebuttal. Care to cite some statistics on your "2000/XP is more stable than OS X" claim?

Re:Torn between...

[4lex]

Yeah, then I agree. A civilization which isn't good at violence doesn't last long. Aside from the Chinese, civilizations which are good at violence don't last forever, either. I suppose you can add to your list of "non successful-because-non-existing Empires" the Romans (as in "the Empire comprising all civilized Earth"), the Spanish (as in "the land where the Sun always shines") or the USSR (remember them?). You perhaps mean that the Romans, the Spanish or the USSR did a bad job in war (both practice and preparation)? No matter how militaristic you are, eventually your time passes (again, Chinese are special, at least up to now... we will see what happens to them now they are beginning to open their frontiers and starting to think aggresively towards the outside world).

If your society does not make valid cultural points, in the moment it ceases to exist (which will inevitably happen), it will matter no more. If it gives something valid to humanity, it will be appreciated forever. I concede, though, that if your society is annihilated rather than absorbed, your cultural contributions may not matter, either (as those of the Aztecs and Inca people).

Re:Switzerland and Iceland chose military strength

[Lars T.]

... The swiss have an army, and they know how to fight.

The swiss have banks, and they know how to use them. How would Hitler wage his war if he couldn't buy material from neutral states with freely convertible swiss currency?