Los Alamos National Laboratory has been a long-time supercomputer user, which they primarily use for models used to simulate nuclear explosions and estimate the health of America’s aging arsenal. They’re about to install one of the world’s most powerful Linux clusters, a new 2,816-processor, 1,408 node system called Lightning, built by cluster company Linux Networx. The cluster will be using Mellanox’s InfiniBand server interconnect technology to connect the nodes.
I can only wonder how much space that beast will take.
They wouldn’t need a supercomputer if they take the weapons finally to the garbage. Cool Workstation, but the use has no benefits to anyone but the weapon industry.
“They wouldn’t need a supercomputer if they take the weapons finally to the garbage. Cool Workstation, but the use has no benefits to anyone but the weapon industry.”
I don’t know… maybe nuclear weapons help make it clear that war is not beneficial. Since the invention of the atom bomb, there hasn’t been any major conflicts. It has kept the U.S. and U.S.S.R from starting WWIII during the Cold War. It has kept the U.S. from starting a major war with China. India and Pakistan are finally realizing that they are stuck with each other and war is not really an option. Maybe people just acts much more rational when someone is pointing a gun at them (and every single person in their family.)
I wonder how this clusters SPEC marks will compare with the G5 cluster. Granted the G5 only has 2200 processors on 1100 machines, not 2816 on 1408, but they should be close. Hypothetically the G5 could even trounce it. Time will tell.
I have a quick note on the verbage here though. If they are doing an MPI-based parallelization, there would be a node for each processor, not for each physical machine. The only case where this wouldn’t be true would be if the node software is multi-threaded, and they therefore get local parallelism on each machine through threading and global parallelism between machines through the MPI mechanism. In computational code however, I think they are probably sticking to pure MPI parallelism. Therefore their 2816 processor machine is a 2816 node machine.
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Is this really a good thing? I know that I don’t want the U.S. researching nuclear technology with the help of Linux. RMS should put a clause in the GPL that says the imperialist U.S. government cannot use Linux.
We as a community cannot tolerate Linux being used for war and destruction. Linux is about peace and utopianism.
Hehe, that was pretty funny.
I would love to have such workstation at home! %))
Utopia will only come to be if we can find the “evil beyond all environmental explanation” gene and then abort those children.
until then, we have to put up with folks who take advantage of the weaknesses of others.
I’m sure that SCO would give the government a discount for buying in that volume. It probably wouldn’t cost them any more than $1,000,000. That means SCO is saving the government over half a million dollars. Aren’t they nice?
I wonder if SCO will sue Linux Networx once they prove, as they have full confidence they will, that Linux includes SCO IP. Being as they are both Canopy Group members, I find that highly improbable. Of course they have to do something to keep the Canopy Group legal team busy, since that’s their real business, so I guess that is better than nothing.
Simulation is so inefficient. I vote that we test those nukes on SCO. There’s a place that ought to be wiped off the face of the Earth!
But, seriously, the higher the penetration of Linux in the US government, the greater the chance you’ll see someone important step in and tell SCO to stuff their claims where the sun don’t shine. NSA did this to a firm which owned some patents that SELinux infringed on. Maybe it’ll happen again?
-Erwos
I can only wonder how much space that beast will take.
“probably about one and a half times the size of a tennis court”
??
They are using Opterons. this article has some more information:
http://www.linuxnetworx.com/news/8.14.2003.48-Los_Alamos_Nati.html
Dont tell me …Dollars ?
I know what I’m going to say has nothing to do with operating systems but damn the torpedo : the US military murdered countless people in Irak under the pretense that Saddam Hussein was busy building nuclear weapons. Now, they’re trying to use that same crap to kill Iranis.
On the other hand, the US government embezzles billions of dollars every year for stuff like nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles or supercomputers used for simulations. I guess the truth is only the US and their minions (mainly the British) have the right to do whatever they want. Luckily for Germans, our Chancellor Schroder doesn’t listen to those antics.
Luckily for Germans, our Chancellor Schroder doesn’t listen to those antics.
Yes, we can learn many ethical lessons from the Germans. Just look at what they gave us in the 20th Century alone! If the Europeans were as ethically superior as they claim, millions of people over the last 500 years would have been a lot better off. As it is, the whole world is full of bastards–European, American, Iranian and any other color you like.
“Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!”
Since the community effort wes used to potentially kill living things in the future. Many have labels Iraqis, Iranis, Afghans, Korean, Arab and Moslems as terorrist but nuclesr bomb is far worst, and I couldn’t imagine that USA especially Bush goverment which claimed to be the world peace keeper are funding this kind of project. It doesn’t matter for what purposed it is but it still kill people and at a larger scale than those suicide blast. Maybe Bush and his team is the real terrorist then
This might be a good news for Linux but a very very very … bad news for human being.
“On the other hand, the US government embezzles billions of dollars every year for stuff like nuclear submarines, ballistic missiles or supercomputers used for simulations”
They also embezzle billions for social security and education. Those fscking pigs!
Luckily for Germans, our Chancellor Schroder doesn’t listen to those antics.
The German military doesn’t use nuclear submarines, ballistic missles or supercomputers? You guys better watch out, what with your neighbors’ despicable history of unprovoked attack and invasion and all.
“As it is, the whole world is full of bastards–European, American, Iranian and any other color you like.”
That’s the point. Why should anyone have nuclear weapons since we are all on an ethical downward spiral? The Bastards are everywhere as you said (and you are right) but should anyone of them have nuclear wepaons? I don’t think that the Germans should be quiet regarding the 20th Century. Everyone can learn and Germany learned really good (with american help). Ah, and there are the START-Contracts. So why build new weapons? The US Government (and Russia too) has enough nuclear weapons in stock to kill the whole planet how much? Three or four times, who cares. That is more than enough for everyone, even the third world. Here in Germany we have a tradition since WW II (in my family and many others) that something like “Das Dritte Reich” or the Cold War must not happen again, never! And remember: We lived on the edge. If a war between US and USSR had begun in the forty years of the separation in Germany me and my city would have been one of the first places to be blown away by nuclear weapons.
In my opinion it is better not to divide this world into races, country, religion or whatever that seperate us when discussing about world peace. As what was said, bastard is everywhere so as bad human being doesn’t matter whether it is Christian, Hindus, Buddhist, Jews, Moslem, Shinto etc. Whats bad is bad, killing others is bad whether using a hijacked plane or guided missille, through voluntay fighter or batallion of army.
And it is bad for Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, India, North Korea etc to develop destructive nuclear bomb. The same should go to US, developing nuclear weapon is bad so as developing killing machine. And US already prove it by killing millions in Hiroshima anda Nagasaki. Does all those who died there are terrorist/Japanese army. Short term power shortage in New York already create a havoc, so could you imagine the the feeling of the citizen of the attacked country like Afghanistan or Iraq?
los alamos is aware that nuclear warheads are unstable to a
beam of neutrons.
a naser (Neutron Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) producing a coherent matter wave of neutrons can cause “fission at a distance” in any nuclear explosive device.
a better use of science and linux clusters would be the simulation of new energy sources based upon quantum physics.
the recent power blackout shows that decentralization of power generation is a national priority for the U.S..
this would have more benefits for the taxpayers funding
los alamos than a lighter ,smaller nuke would.
also, “open-sourcing” much old classified data on obsolete
devices that no longer protect the U.S. would save billions
of dollars.
No their not. Even depleted uranium rounds are bad for the environment, at least for living things.
The research will probably be for creating a DEPLOYABLE nuclear payload like a proximity nuke. I don’t see how you can see this as a good thing.