Sun Grid Compute Utility 185
jbltgz writes "The Register is reporting that the long awaited Sun Grid Compute Utility has been opened to the public. Now you can run your CPU intensive jobs on a grid of AMD Opteron-based Sun Hardware for $1 per CPU per hour for a fraction of cost, in a fraction of the time."
Selling off CPU time... (Score:5, Interesting)
ZzzzSleep
Re:Selling off CPU time... (Score:2)
Re:Selling off CPU time... (Score:2)
It's called Bonzi Buddy...like Seti@Home for spam
POVRay (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anyone think of other good uses for the average (or not so average) home user? Perhaps new image compression formats that rely on Sun's Grid to get the best compression/quality tradeoffs through brute-force power?
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
Re:POVRay (Score:2, Funny)
Compile gentoo with KDE in only 20hrs
Browse 10 pages in Firefox
Run Windows XP Pro AND Notepad at the same time
Get 20FPS in BF2
Run a "Hello World" java applet
Re:POVRay (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, only the compilation stands a chance of working as it is the only one that can work well as a batch job. The others require some kind of interactive display hardware in there, and you can bet you won't have that in the public offering. (Maybe you can get it from the top-end
Re:POVRay (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.verrall.demon.co.uk/mpipov/ [demon.co.uk]
There is also a PVM version as well.
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/p ovray/pvmpov.html [ucalgary.ca]
For one of my graduate classes I am MPI enabling the latest povray source based on Leon Verrall, Andreas Dilger, & Brad Klines previous work mentioned above.
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
POV has been parallelized for years. Believe it or not there is even a sourceforge project for it.
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
Right you are! I found this version [uni-potsdam.de] of POVRay that supports DRMAA rendering. So it looks like all that is required is a recompile for Solaris AMD64, and it'll be good to go!
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
Perhaps this could be used for video encoding? Certainly, many users would probably encode movies they intend to illegally redistribute, but that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of users who are looking to make a DVD (eventually Blu-Ray) of their home videos or amatuer movies. Sun's grid could potentially compress all the movi
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
video encoding (Score:2)
The only way it'd make sense is if you have a lot of video to compress and even then, over the long term it might still make sense to buy a cheapo computer or two & DIY.
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
Re:POVRay (Score:2)
That wasn't my concern. Even if binaries didn't exist for Solaris x64, I'm fairly certain that I could coax the software into compiling. My real concern was whether or not it had been ported to conform to the DRMAA spec. (The standard grid computing API supported by N1.) As it turns out, there are several research versions of POVRay that support DRMAA. So the work is more or less done.
FYI: Non USians need not apply. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FYI: Non USians need not apply. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FYI: Non USians need not apply. (Score:2)
Details please (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
At work, we find couriering HDDs to have awesome bandwidth.
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Video Guy: "So yeah, they take all the film, and put it on video for us to edit; of course now they send it to us digitally, and we send it back--
56K modem line, of course! (Score:2)
I think they should just add a service where people could deliver or snail mail dual layer dvds or tapes with data, with a set of new dvds or tapes for results. One can overnight it with Fedex. Then, they run the program on the grid, load up the result on another set of dvds or tapes and ove
Re:56K modem line, of course! (Score:2)
If you change "DVD" and "tapes" for "punch card" in your sentence, you are describing computing as it was known 30 years ago.
Re:56K modem line, of course! (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
TFA and Sun's site are low on details, but I imagine they run Solaris. So if you compile for that OS (which is binary compatible between recent versions) or, more likely, usa Java, you should be fine.
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
-nB
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Perhaps not JITted code, but for long running processes, a modern mixed-mode JVM like hotspot can kick the pants off a similar C/C++ program. [kano.net] So using the latest Java VM may actually save you money by executing your code as efficiently as possible. You can probably get pretty close with a static compiler by optimizing specifically for the machines that Sun uses, but it would be hard to beat out a runtime JVM that kno
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:3, Informative)
Sun claims that they are "dual-core Sun Fire, Opertron servers". That means that they are likely to be something like the V20z [sun.com] which range from 2.0 GHz to 2.2 GHz. It would be nice if they were a bit more specific (e.g. how do you know they'll upgrade the grid in the future?), but their FAQ makes it sound like they're relying on Solaris CPU stats to charge you. OS stats like that are usually
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
does anyone have a version of VOBSUB that runs on Solaris 10 (and does it scale beyond 2 cores well)?
I can see it now: upload a DVD in an encrypted volume as your dataset, have a decryption/encryption wrapper around vobsub and output an encrypted MP4 as your results file.
Batch up your movies and away you go. Sun will even handle the distrobution of the MP4 as you simply place the download path and password on the net
Betcha it happens (sooner or later)
-nB
Re:Details please (Score:3, Informative)
Any code that can be compiled and tested on Solaris 10 can be run on the grid. However, to get the benefit of parallel execution (meaning running parts of a job on multiple processors at the same time), which is really the main benefit of running on a grid like this, you must either write multi-threaded code, or you must use the MPI library, which is pretty much the standard these days for scientific and parallel computing.
Re:Details please (Score:2, Informative)
From their FAQ [sun.com]:
Q: What parallel environments (pvm, mpi, etc.) are available for use on the Sun Grid Utility Services?
A: MPICH v1.2.6, an open implementation of the "Message Passing Interface" is the only parallel environment currently supported on the Sun Grid. MPICH is configured to leverage IP-based
Re:Details please (Score:3, Informative)
18. Q:
What are the basic minimum technical requirements to run an application on the Sun Grid Compute Utility?
A:
The following requirements must be met:
Application must run on Solaris 10 (x64).
User must own the application or have proper legal licenses to run applications on the Sun Grid Compute Utility.
Applications must be scripted to work with N1 Grid Engine software.
Application must be self-contained, with no dependencies on external libraries or data sets
Application and data sets tot
Re:Details please (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Details please (Score:2)
Re:Details please (Score:3, Insightful)
A bug could be costly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
And holy crap it's lame that that makes me as jealous as it does.
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
Your bill would have been $16,800 for that infinite loop.
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
Personally, I think $1/CPU hour is a reasonable place to start. Maybe they'll let the price float with demand in the future.
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:3, Interesting)
During development, I made the mistake of doing an unqualified join between the primary call tab
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
Re:A bug could be costly (Score:2)
How did you have 100 processors maxs out for a week without knowing?
How's this work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How's this work? (Score:2)
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:2)
Cause if that's the case, I can see a business model that involves lophtcrack or John the Ripper.
Re:Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. See the Sun FAQ [sun.com].
Cause if that's the case, I can see a business model that involves lophtcrack or John the Ripper.
Considering that Sun has your Credit Card number and your contact information, I highly doubt you'll be getting away with much DDOSing or Spamming. Even if you use a stolen card #, Sun would be likely to kick you off the servers after they notice excessive network and/or mail server usage.
Re:Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:2)
Re:Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:2)
Re:Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:2)
Re:Since I don't remember the earlier stories... (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography) [wikipedia.org]
Of course, if the salt is available to you, then making a rainbow table using a grid is much more efficient than trying to brute the system
Before anyone shouts :DUPE! (Score:3, Informative)
rtfa kthnx
Free demo here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe it's like razors (Score:2, Flamebait)
Want a printout of your results? That's $100 per page . . .
Re:Maybe it's like razors (Score:2)
I mean, a small-ish game developer could pre-compute a lot of data on the grid without having to invest in their own hardware and expertise and time for a less-capable solution, all kinds of things really.
Re:Maybe it's like razors (Score:2)
http://www.sun.com/service/sungrid/faq.xml#q24 [sun.com]
They mention that (for a limited time) you get a max of 10GB of storage (for 180 days!) and that each box has 4GB per CPU.
So... maybe in the future, you'll pay extra for disk storage, but RAM will always be 4GB per CPU
Greetings Professor Falken... (Score:5, Funny)
Sun Grid HW / SW specs (Score:4, Informative)
Q:
What are the components of the Sun Grid Compute Utility?
A:
The Sun Grid Compute Utility service consists of the following parts:
* Sun Fire dual processor Opteron-based servers with 4GB/RAM per CPU
* Solaris 10 (x64)
* Solaris 10 OS;
* Sun N1 Grid Engine 6 software;
* Grid Network Infrastructure of 1Gb switched Data Network and 100 Mb dedicated management network;
* Web-based access portal; and
* Internet-only access to upload data and applications (no physical access to location);
* Storage allocation of up to 10 GB per user account.
http://www.sun.com/service/sungrid/faq.xml [sun.com]
Re:Sun Grid HW / SW specs (Score:2)
Let them put infiniband on those systems and it becomes interesting. In the meantime I'd say it's nice for single CPU jobs only.
What, they are trying this again? (Score:3)
I remember an article in slashdot about how the Sun grid was completely unused.
Re:What, they are trying this again? (Score:2)
Some links:
Lights On But No One Home At Sun Grid [slashdot.org]
Sun Grid Utility Goes Live for Employees [slashdot.org]
The Sun is setting (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, $1/CPU/hr. Same price as an MP3 off of iTunes, so it must be worthwhile, right?
OK, we are only about 3.5 months into the year of 2006, and lets look at some real data:
I run a few small to medium sized HPC clusters, and on one of them, here are the CPU hours used during 2006 -- 163,000+ this is on less than $500k of hardware that is years old. That would cost $163k just in computing time, not to include time to port applications, debug, etc.
Sun needs to be run by engineers and visionaries again, not by marketers. $1/CPU/hr is not going to do much better on those falling stock prices than selling $200 Linux PCs in Wal-Mart.
Re:The Sun is setting (Score:3, Insightful)
I suspect the real selling points are:
- Sun's service is probably straightforward for app developers.
- The hardware is essentially "infinite."
- "Oh, you need a month's worth of processing done by next Monday? We'll have it done Saturday night, if you'd like to pick it up then, ma'am
Re:The Sun is setting (Score:2, Insightful)
Slippery Slope (Score:2)
If Mores law holds true Suns revenue will half evrey 18 months, so the question is, is this permanent? Will they find new things to burn clocks? Or will they try to corner the market and still try to charge $1 according to a 2GHz machine.
The only way I could see this working is if they charge by clock rather than time and charge very little, this way you pay the same am
Doesn't the pricing encourage non-CPU intensive? (Score:2)
Do you want me to package it as a J2EE WAR file? Fine!
I would have made use of Sun's grid already (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I would have made use of Sun's grid already (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I would have made use of Sun's grid already (Score:2)
Scroll down to the GeoProbe movie -- they mention a system with 512 GB of "shared memory". And mention linux.
Ok, so (Score:3, Funny)
This sounds familar (Score:3, Interesting)
At last a solution for h264 DVD recoding!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I anticipate that each film would cost me ~$2. Not bad. Is that a safe bet? ANybody know what disk space they give for "personal files".
Now to explain to my ISP that I am not participating in illegal file sharing with +100GB per month of traffic is not going to be easy..
More seriously, I could use this to run some of my Monte-Carlo simulators..
Re:At last a solution for h264 DVD recoding!! (Score:2, Informative)
Christ, you've got some good upload! (Score:2)
Is there a distributed alternative? (Score:4, Interesting)
The price per hour per cpu could be based on demand and could be distributed to all the contributers. Imagine all the processing power out there not being used. Especially the gpus on people's video cards while they're not playing games.
Re:Is there a distributed alternative? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes this exists, but I think the 'Bot-ware manufacturers have the market sewn up, and at $0 / hr.
Re:Is there a distributed alternative? (Score:2)
CPUShare (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.cpushare.com/ [cpushare.com]
Still experimental for now but soon
I did some math and I will build a server farm if I can get a steady 10c/hr/processor.
PenGun
Do What Now
Re:CPUShare (Score:2)
Condor (Score:2, Insightful)
Seti@home (Score:4, Funny)
Take down NEZ for one day-- that would be sweet
http://www.boincstats.com/stats/boinc_user_stats.
Hit By a Network Attack? (Score:3, Interesting)
New.com article "Sun Grid hit by network attack" : http://news.com.com/2100-7349_3-6052968.html [com.com]
Meanwhile, a grid that's actually doing paid work (Score:2)
7054 frames in the rendering queue.
7036 frames in the rendering queue.
7001 frames in the rendering queue....
Re:Obligatory (Score:2)
Re:Imagine All the SPAM! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isnt this really expensive? (Score:5, Interesting)
The most powerful computer in the world right now, ASC Purple (it does nuclear weapons simulations for the USG), has 1.5 GHz RISC processors. Not exactly impressive, by today's standards
It's the infrastructure to get that many processors (and their associated dangly bits) talking to each other and working on the same problem efficiently that's expensive and nontrivial.
Re:Isnt this really expensive? (Score:2)
Blue Gene W 91.29 TFlop/s 40960 Processors
Blue Gene/L 280.6 TFlop/s 131072 Processors
Re:Isnt this really expensive? (Score:2)
Re:Isnt this really expensive? (Score:2)
Here's an example: when your $1 billion (thats billion with a B) commercial highrise in Japan is undergoing earthquake t
Re:Let's get these out of the way (Score:2)
Re:What types of useful applications? (Score:2)
Also, jobs that run once a year might be cheaper to run this way, as opposed to new hardware that won't be used through most of the year.
Is a dollar an hout cost effective? I ahve my doubts, considering most of the cost is the support for the application.
Re:If only something like this were free (Score:2)
Re:Solaris-10 or Java Binaries only? (Score:2, Informative)