Commodity supercomputing, was: Re: NDAs Re: [Beowulf]

[Jon Aquilina]

dont throw in the towel just for that. try and see if you can get research
funding through the university you are attending

On 7/1/08, Mark Kosmowski <mark.kosmowski at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And I forgot to change the subject.  Apologies.
>
> On 7/1/08, Mark Kosmowski <mark.kosmowski at gmail.com> wrote:
> > At some point there a cost-benefit analysis needs to be performed.  If
> > my cluster at peak usage only uses 4 Gb RAM per CPU (I live in
> > single-core land still and do not yet differentiate between CPU and
> > core) and my nodes all have 16 Gb per CPU then I am wasting RAM
> > resources and would be better off buying new machines and physically
> > transferring the RAM to and from them or running more jobs each
> > distributed across fewer CPUs.  Or saving on my electricity bill and
> > powering down some nodes.
> >
> > As heretical as this last sounds, I'm tempted to throw in the towel on
> > my PhD studies because I can no longer afford the power to run my
> > three node cluster at home.  Energy costs may end up being the straw
> > that breaks this camel's back.
> >
> > Mark E. Kosmowski
> >
> > > From: "Jon Aquilina" <eagles051387 at gmail.com>
> >
> > >
> > > not sure if this applies to all kinds of senarios that clusters are
> used in
> > > but isnt the more ram you have the better?
> > >
> > > On 6/30/08, Vincent Diepeveen <diep at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Toon,
> > > >
> > > > Can you drop a line on how important RAM is for weather forecasting
> in
> > > > latest type of calculations you're performing?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Vincent
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Jun 30, 2008, at 8:20 PM, Toon Moene wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Jim Lux wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> Yep.  And for good reason.  Even a big DoD job is still tiny in
> Nvidia's
> > > >>> scale of operations. We face this all the time with NASA work.
> > > >>>  Semiconductor manufacturers have no real reason to produce special
> purpose
> > > >>> or customized versions of their products for space use, because
> they can
> > > >>> sell all they can make to the consumer market. More than once, I've
> had a
> > > >>> phone call along the lines of this:
> > > >>> "Jim: I'm interested in your new ABC321 part."
> > > >>> "Rep: Great. I'll just send the NDA over and we can talk about it."
> > > >>> "Jim: Great, you have my email and my fax # is..."
> > > >>> "Rep: By the way, what sort of volume are you going to be using?"
> > > >>> "Jim: Oh, 10-12.."
> > > >>> "Rep: thousand per week, excellent..."
> > > >>> "Jim: No, a dozen pieces, total, lifetime buy, or at best maybe
> every
> > > >>> year."
> > > >>> "Rep: Oh...<dial tone>"
> > > >>> {Well, to be fair, it's not that bad, they don't hang up on you..
> > > >>>
> > > >>
> > > >> Since about a year, it's been clear to me that weather forecasting
> (i.e.,
> > > >> running a more or less sophisticated atmospheric model to provide
> weather
> > > >> predictions) is going to be "mainstream" in the sense that every
> business
> > > >> that needs such forecasts for its operations can simply run them
> in-house.
> > > >>
> > > >> Case in point:  I bought a $1100 HP box (the obvious target group
> being
> > > >> teenage downloaders) which performs the HIRLAM limited area model
> *on the
> > > >> grid that we used until October 2006* in December last year.
> > > >>
> > > >> It's about twice as slow as our then-operational 50-CPU Sun Fire
> 15K.
> > > >>
> > > >> I wonder what effect this will have on CPU developments ...
> > > >>
> > > >> --
> > > >> Toon Moene - e-mail: toon at moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phone: +31 346
> 214290
> > > >> Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
> > > >> At home: http://moene.indiv.nluug.nl/~toon/
> > > >> Progress of GNU Fortran:
> http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2008-01/msg00009.html
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Jonathan Aquilina
> >
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-- 
Jonathan Aquilina
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