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Windows selected for cluster project | |
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| Time: 00:09 EST/05:09 GMT | News Source: VNUNet | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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The University of Southampton has opted for Windows over Linux to run a clustered computing project to investigate vehicle aerodynamics. The university is using Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 to cope with the Spitfire project’s high-performance computing demands. | ||
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| #1 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 6/15/2006 8:27:29 AM |
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This article has MS' fingerprints all over it. The first several paragraphs bear a suspicious resemblance to MS' usual crowing press releases. At the end, they have a comment from someone who says they're not so sure about HPC w/Windows, but since he's from IBM you can dismiss him as just a griping MS competitor. Too bad they didn't bother to get one of the several thousand professors around the world that use *nix for HPC to comment.
"In the past, Takeda used an IBM SP2 Unix system to run complex calculations, but found it difficult to integrate into Southampton University’s Windows environment." That should be fixed any day now that MS has announced it's interested in interoperability. |
| #2 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 6/15/2006 9:49:58 AM |
| I wish they would have dug a bit deeper in the article, especially with regards to the criticism. I think you're right--at this point, Windows is relatively unproven in the HPC world, so it will remain to be seen how it compares. The promise of Windows ease-of-use will remain to be seen, but it's also quick on the part of the person at Cardiff (Fayers) to say that it compares badly performance-wise to Linux and Solaris (who has run independent, in-depth benchmarks on the released product already?). Strange remark regarding Solaris, also, when they are IBM-based (presumably Linux?). It depends on what you plan to do with it, too. Solaris is a much better candidate than Linux for scaling across giant SMP non-clustered systems, but probably not so much for giant clustered systems. At any rate, I'm guessing that if the product takes off, Windows will find a niche somewhere between the two--smaller scale clustered systems (which is exactly their target). |
| #3 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 6/15/2006 9:52:42 AM |
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1) High Performance Computing is becoming a commodity business. Small and medium sized companies have a need for HPC resources, and they can now buy them for not that much money. An example is the Tyan Typhoon: http://www.tyan.com/products/html/clusterservers.html
2) Linux is "free as in puppies". Once you choose to go that route you need resources and expertise that may be expensive. As the article says: "Using Windows also makes clusters cheaper, because there is no need to hire Unix or Linux administrators to run them." 3) Even if Linux or Unix can run faster than Windows (not according to some benchmarks I've seen), why pay for a dedicated Linux/Unix admin when you can just buy 2 Tyan Typhoons and administer them with you current Windows admin? It would be a lot cheaper. 4) Linux momentum has effectively ended. In 2005, Windows server unit shipments grew by 12.9%, Unix shipments declined by 8.7%, and Linux barely grew faster than Windows at 14.4%. Windows is where its at in terms of small, medium business. And thats the first market Microsoft is aiming for. |
| #4 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 6/15/2006 9:57:58 AM |
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" We don’t want to go to the Top 500 [a list of highest-performing clusters] but the bottom 250,000,” said Tony Hey, Microsoft technical computing vice-president. “We’re working with the key independent software vendors to parallelise their code so the programs run on day one and users can afford to do things they couldn’t afford to do before. We’re trying to make parallel computing more of a commodity where you unwrap the box and it just works.”
Hey added that Microsoft intends to further differentiate itself through superior control tools so that scientists and others do not have to use unfamiliar tools to manage tasks. “We can do better in terms of productivity but Microsoft is at a stage where it recognises there’s a heterogeneous environment out there and we have to interoperate with Linux and open-source tools,” he said. " |
| #5 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 6/15/2006 10:35:59 AM |
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#3:
-1 I think the article was talking about real HPC, not toys like that Tyan rig. -2 What FUD (as usual). If you're playing in the HPC space, then you already know and have the resources required. When you're running a couple of million worth of hardware, you don't balk at paying someone who knows what he's doing to maintain it. And, unlike Mom & Pop Inc., most universities have a capable Linux admin staff. No need to hire anybody. You're just parroting an MS FUDding point I've heard many times before. MS always assumes that Windows, and only Windows, is everywhere when in reality most places have a heterogeneous mix. -3 Good question. Why buy a PC when you can get a brain-dead monkey with an abacus and slide-rule? -4 Linux momentumn has ended, has it? Oh well, I guess all those companies making Linux and all the ones using it may as well just close up shop and go home. I mean, after all, Parkkker has said they're finished. Yep, Kinux servers grew faster than WINdows, so that's ironclad proof Linux is doomed. DOOMED, I TELL YOU! #4: So what you're saying is that MS is an HPC bottom-feeder? Or were you saying that MS can't play with the big boys, so they'll take the scraps? |
| #6 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 6/15/2006 11:18:33 AM |
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Most "real" clusters at universities are usually made up of racks of commodity hardware. They aren't custom Cray rigs costing millions of dollars. An example is an NCSA machine made up of a bunch of Dells: http://www.channelweb.com/sections/allnews/article.jhtml?articleId=189400018&cid=ChannelWebNews
I didn't say Linux was doomed. I'm just saying that it has cherry picked a lot of sales in places where Unix cost a lot more and is now growing at the same rate as Windows when it used to grow at double the rate. Next year it will probably grow at half the rate. And it will never, ever come close to catching Windows in the next 20 years. If I was Microsoft, I'd rather sell 250,000 copies of Windows for HPC than give away 500 copies of Ubuntu. There is more profit in it. Which finances more research, which results in stable successful products like Windows Server 2003 R2 x86 and x64. The future looks bright as Longhorn becomes a series of components that can be mixed and matched. I suspect the research done on the HPC project will pay a lot of dividends in highly optimized components that will do fantastic in the HPC market. I detect a strain of desperation in your arguments. Afraid of the competition I assume. This post was edited by NotParker on Thursday, June 15, 2006 at 11:20. |
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