Posted on 06/27/2007 8:09:14 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Call it "supercomputing smackdown." Today, at the International Supercomputing Conference 2007 (ISC07) in Dresden, Germany, the Top500 group announced its latest list of the top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world.
To say it's a competitive list would be an understatement and few of the players can hold top spots long without constant improvements. With a few exceptions, this June's list has seen a reshuffling since the last list was published last November.
If there is such a thing as a winner in such a competition, however, that would be IBM (Quote). Just as last November – the top 500 list is recompiled every six months – Big Blue held the top spot, with its Blue Gene/L - eServer Blue Gene Solution. In fact, IBM has taken that top spot four times running with the system deployed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
"The Blue Gene/L System development by IBM and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., claimed the No. 1 spot," the Top500 group announced Wednesday.
That system achieved a blazing benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlops ("teraflops" or trillions of floating point operations per second) running what's called the Linpack benchmark. (For those who are not mathematically challenged, the Top500 group says the point of the Linpack benchmark is "to solve a dense system of linear equations.")
Interestingly, IBM's performance with the Power-based Blue Gene/L System was identical to its score in November 2006 and in November 2005. (IBM says the system's theoretical performance is 360 TFlops.)
Additionally, however, three other eServer Blue Gene systems made the top ten – last November, IBM only had two of the systems on the list. A fifth IBM system, a BladeCenter JS21 cluster system located at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, and also Power-based, came in at number 9, down from the number 5 spot last November.
If that weren't enough, a sixth IBM system, an eServer pSeries p5 575, also made the top ten.
Despite such a strong showing, however, Big Blue doesn't completely dominate. Neither is it the only company whose supercomputers turned in teraflop performances.
Notably, Cray (Quote) supercomputers, powered by AMD processors, hold the number two and three spots on the new list. Both beat the 100 TFlop barrier with more than 101 TFlops apiece. Cray held the number two and ten spots last time.
Intel (Quote) chips are also represented in the top ten supercomputing sites with systems from Dell (Quote) in eighth place and SGI (Quote) at ten. Bumped from June 2007's top ten were Bull SA and NEC/Sun.
Begun in 1993, this is the 29th Top500 list to be published. A lot has changed since then. As a matter of fact much has changed in just the last six months.
"The performance needed to make it onto the list increased to 4.005 TFlops, compared to 2.737 TFlop/s six months ago, [and] the system ranked [at] 500 on the current list would have held position number 216 only six months ago .... the largest turnover rate between lists in the Top500 project’s 15-year history," the Top500 group's statement said.
Trend-wise, despite having only two in the top ten, Intel-based systems continued to gain ground as the predominant high performance computing (HPC) processor, with nearly 58 percent share – 289 out of 500. That's up from 52.5 percent last time.
AMD (Quote) came in second with 21 percent, a decline from 22.6 percent in November, while IBM Power-based systems represent 17 percent, or 85 systems, down from 18.6 percent six months ago. Dual core processors, clusters, and Gigabit Ethernet all dominate, although InfiniBand usage is growing for system interconnections.
The U.S. is home to 281 of the 500 systems on the latest list, and European sites have grown to 127 systems (a jump from 95), while Asian sites dropped to 72 (a decline from 79). Of those, Japan has 23 and China has 13 of the Top500 systems. The UK currently has the most in Europe -- 43 systems -- and Germany is second with 24.
One significant indicator of how dynamic the HPC/supercomputing market is: "The average age of a system in the Top500 list is only 1 year and 2 months," the group said. Also worthy of note, HP (Quote) systems did not rank in the top 50, while IBM systems comprise 46 percent of the top 50.
Actually, all of the machines that Linux Networx installs run either RH or SLES. I happen to know that #17 is running Red Hat.
I think there are more of us than there are Stallmanites. I also know of one other FReeper that uses the machine in #17.
The price I quoted is as stated on the Microsoft site for volume licensing of WCCS. I guess we can't trust Microsoft?
The Red Hat price I gave of $274 is the lowest I saw, and that’s still PER YEAR pricing.
I see you still haven't figured it out. As usual you are woefully ignorant of the subjects on which you post. And I refuse to educate you this time, I don't get paid enough. Besides, you failed the previous classes due to an inability to learn.
The basic premise is correct, although the facts are off as usual. My point was why pay for Windows, so there's a valid point of why pay for Red Hat either.
That’s an open market license, the highest there is. Volume discounts get it down as low as $150 per system according to CDW. You’re the one who obviously doesn’t have a clue LOL.
Your points are faulty, like always. You should just go back to your Windows programming terminal since you don't have a clue about large scale licensing or support.
Swing and a miss. You still haven't a clue. Do you need a hint?
You can't even realize when I'm defending you, can you?
Mature Tools, Support Vital to Linux Cluster Implementations
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci928323,00.html
You talk in so many circles there’s never any telling what will come out. The only thing I ever see that’s consistent is your defense of green party whackos and communists. And attacks on Christians and Republicans, of course.
Grasping at thin air. Getting colder...
Don't get me started... When I bought my first computer, it was an Altos 586. I bought it used in 1986 for $1000. It ran Altos XENIX, and had 1MB RAM, 5 serial ports (they threw in 2 Altos II serial terminals), a 10MHz 8086 (not an 8088) processor, and a 10 MEGAbyte hard drive, that I replaced with a 40MB drive - I bought the drive used for $1000! The computer that I'm using at this moment has more than 400GB of drive space, and I've got a couple of 500GB external drives (and 3 250GB external drives) that I use for archival purposes.)
Mark
Long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ... I had the opportunity to meet Seymour Cray. Great fellow.
BTW, WTF is up with Stallman this time? I just read he’s going to be “unveiling” the GPL3 on a live video stream on Friday. Thinking that he can steal some thunder from Apple on that day, or trying to ride on Apple’s coattails?
I think somebody forgot his meds.
You're making me jealous. I have a friend who met Admiral Grace Hopper, and I was jealous then, too.
LOL there’s obviously a better chance of you watching your hero Stallman on Friday than getting an iPhone. You defend him and Russian hackers who crack Apple’s OSX to run on cheap PC’s constantly, what’s your hacker plan for running the cellphone version of OSX on some Linux phone?
A person who believes in principles may seem confusing to one such as you who goes by situational ethics.
Wow, you finally got something right! I don't want a cell phone, and Stallman may just be good for a few laughts.
what’s your hacker plan for running the cellphone version of OSX on some Linux phone
Maybe I plan to buy one and then hack the lock-in so that it will run on Sprint instead of AT&T. What does your high-and-mighty anti-hacking crusade have to say about that?
LOL you have principles all right they’re just all leftist, from copyleft vs. copyright to free software for the world to “the 180 day rule for criminal prosecution” defense for Russian hackers. Not to mention the endless attacks on Christians and Republicans, you’re real principled all right LMAO.
I knew who he was - because I was casually introduced to him. We chatted about silly things. (At the time this conversation was taking place, I was living in Australia - he was in the country on a visit). I asked him what brought him to Australia (I specifically wanted a non-computer reason for the visit.). I remember like it was yesterday -- he said: "turtles -- I've come to see your turtles." (Apparently his hobby was the study of turtles.)
I remember howling with laughter and spontaneously blurted out (totally uncensored) "What are you, some kind of idiot? Its marsupials this country has, not turtles."
I remember my host cringing when I asked if Seymour were an idiot (to his face), and I remember Seymour throwing his head back and laughing and laughing -- deep, deep belly laughs. I guess no one had ever dared to call him an idiot to his face. I didn't mean it -- it just came out -- but he was stupid -- come on -- turtles -- Australia? Kangas, yes, but turtles.
It ended up being a very funny evening.
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