Counting Your Effective HPC Cores
- Published on Thursday, 24 May 2012 13:14
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 2506
Can more cores per node address HPC needs or are thin nodes on the horizon?
As multi-core continues the dominate the x86 marketplace, there has always been a nagging question for some HPC users; What is better, many single socket multi-core nodes or fewer fat nodes with as many sockets as possible. Of course the amortization of hardware costs (power supplies, cases, hard disk, etc) is a win for the fat node approach, but what about performance? As nodes offer more and more cores, does HPC performance follow?
Time To Get To It: The Cluster Documentation Project
- Published on Monday, 14 May 2012 09:27
- Written by Administrator
- Hits: 848
Somebody better be writing this down for the next crew
Remember when you said, I'll get to the documentation later and never did. Well, now it is later and it is time to get the documentation in better shape. After contributing to on-line cluster documentation for years, Cluster Monkey has decided to start a community based project to help make something that is good much better.
The state of HPC and cluster documentation is not bad per-se, but it needs work. Most projects have adequate documentation for experts and many academic text books have good in-depth background. There seems to be a hole however, in the "how-to" type of cluster documentation. In particular, it is often hard for newcomers to the community/market to get a foot hold in the HPC thing as it were. The open source nature of much of the software has created a wide ranging spectrum of resources and critical pathways. The Cluster Documentation Project (CDP) is designed to help improve this state of affairs. Leveraging some past efforts, the current project site has begun, but is far from being complete. For instance it has a unique listing of Open/Freely Available Cluster Applications not found anywhere else.
Read more: Time To Get To It: The Cluster Documentation Project
A Smidgen of Quantum Computing
- Published on Monday, 05 March 2012 11:22
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 6946
Does a real instant password cracking quantum computer exist, or are we just at the beginning of the next revolution in computing?
(Note: The first half of this article was published last year at Linux-mag.com, however the second half was never published. Both parts have been updated and are presented below.)
Recent news by IBM describes very good progress toward the creation of real quantum computer. The work helped solve the stability problem associated with many quantum computer designs. There have been other quantum computer announcements over the last year. In May of 2011 a press release by DWave Systems proclaimed D-Wave Systems sells its first Quantum Computing System to Lockheed Martin Corporation. The press release created a bit of a stir in the quantum computing world and as with any new technology there is often some confusing (some deliberate) around actual milestones and press releases.
Supercomputers: Getting it Right and Wrong
- Published on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 11:15
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 4027
Much has changed in the supercomputing arena. Even you can get in the game!
Recently, Sebastian Anthony wrote an article for ExtremeTech entitled What Can You Do With A Supercomputer? His conclusion was "not much" and for many people he is largely correct. However, there is deeper understanding that may change the answer to "plenty."
He was mostly right when talking about the worlds largest supercomputers. Indeed, one very workable past definition of a supercomputer was "any computer that had at least a six digit price tag." In the past, that was largely true and created a rather daunting barrier to entry for those who needed to crunch numbers. The cost was due to an architectural wall between supercomputers and the rest of computing. These systems were designed to perform math very quickly using vector processors. It all worked rather well until the cost of fabrication made creating your own vector CPU prohibitively expensive.
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