Xserve G5s to Replace PowerMacs in 'Big Mac'?

[Rod Rod]

I'd buy a used PM G5 from the VT cluster.

I think $2699 would be a fair price, with 3 years of AppleCare optional on top of that.

Each of those machines has 4GB of RAM!

 

[breakaway1029]

I think that if this "migration" was part of the original deal, Apple was just using BigMac1 as a publicity stunt, where VT gets the #3 SC in the world, and Apple becomes a low cost solution for supercomputing, a win-win situation for everyone. Now apple can resell the BigMac as a whole, or in smaller clusters that are more reasonable for schools who want a supercomputer but only have $1-$2million. Of course Apple would have to help with setup and/or management, but that becomes a good deal for them. Apple would be absorbing ~$5million in giving VT xserves and helping manage the miniMac SC's, but they would become the favorite SC "manufacturer" overnight, by having ~3-4 computers in the top 10, but only costing ~$15-$20 million total

 

[MacRAND]

Re: Re: Xserve G5s to Replace PowerMacs in 'Big Mac'?

Originally posted by wizard
Not to burst a bubble here but who would be willing to pay extra for a PC that has had heavy usage and will likely be outdated by the time they are available.

Not to burst anybodies bubble here, but if VT is truely thinking about migrating to rack mount units, it does appear that they made a mistake in purchasing G5's in the first place. Can you imaigne anybody in business building a super computer and then telling his boss 6 months later that the physical plant has to be rebuilt because they will migrate to STANDARD hardware. The standard of course being 19" EIA racks. Only in higher education can one get away with this.

Dave

Pay "extra", no.
Discount with warranty, yes!
And, I don't have a G5 yet so I would love it.

Yes to migration. Remember their deadline to pull this off? NO MISTAKE, it was worth millions in income from government grants and business for WHAT they have accomplished and WHEN they did it.
Oh, yes. Very smart move.

 

[suzerain]

Re: Re: basically confirmed months ago

Originally posted by arn
I remember this talk but don't remember him saying they were migrating to EEC ram.

link?

arn

Sure, Arn...make me look stuff up.

It was the second to last question in Varadarajan's TenCon Keynote about the G5 cluster....right above the "how many pizzas" question.

Here is a relevant quote:

How do you deal with Error Correction in Memory?

There's a lot of traffic on Ars Technica and other places. We do failure recovery, memory doesn't report. One of the things we've noticed is that failures aren't an issue yet. The reason they can be competent is the LINPACK test, which is showing 16 digits of accuracy. We are planning on moving to ECC systems in the future. They may have to run things twice for a bit.

So, if they wqere planning to move to ECC systems...they had to come from somewhere...it meant eithger Power Mac changes, or new XServes. Obviously, the latter was the more likely option, the way I see it.

Here are two transcriptions of the keynote: Adventures in Troubleshooting and MacSlash.

 

[Steamboatwillie]

Originally posted by DaveGee
"Own a piece of the 3rd largest super computer in the world!"

Heck... Some smart person could even sell em for a premium... Stick a cool placard on it and who knows what some might pay...

D

or, laser etched on the side, numbered editions:

"System 72 of 1100 that was part of the original Virgina Tech Supercomputer. Ranked 3rd fastest cluster in the world in 2003 at 10.x terraflops"

Better than an iPod engraving!

 

[3.1416]

Originally posted by edesignuk
Nice thought, don't think so. The Earth Simulator is in a different league.

The Earth Simulator is 35 teraflops. Big Mac is at 10, and Big Mac II could easily fit 4 times as many CPUs in the same space. Could be interesting, although there's the question of whether VT wants to buy 4 times as many Xserves.

 

[desdomg]

I think this rumor is fantasy.

If true Apple would be sending out the following message to all those G5 buyers:

"G5's were the fastest but now they are obsolete and are being replaced by xserves"

And VTech would be spending more time building supercomputers than using them.

No, I think Apple will want to milk this success for all they can and V Tech will want to get some work done.

 

[ffakr]

stupid

This really is a stupid rumor.

- Apple and VT stated over and over that they did a retail purchase for these machines. Retail purchases do not include free upgrades from desktops to rack units
- As mentioned over and over, room/racks were custom fit for the towers, migrating to 1U racks would not be trivial.
- VT nodes have a lot of memory in them, if Apple swapped them out, that memory would be useless in the xServes and they'd take a bath trying to resell refurbs with that much memory in them. If they offered xServes with same memory config, they'd take an even bigger bath since ECC is so expensive.
- VT has already stated that one benefit of using G5 towers was that as they upgrade, they could re-use the towers around campus. They aren't giving them back to Apple.

This is a really silly rumor. With the memory in those, Apple'd probably take a hit of a couple thousand per node if they offered free upgrades. Apple execs have told me more than once 'Apple isn't in the business of loosing money anymore'. I've long said that Apple should dump cash into the Game development scene.. provide free coding help, discounted equip.. Apple's response has basically been that they don't spend money on things like this... nor would they take a $2Million hit trying to give VT free machines.
VT Isn't going to rip out their custom racks either.

This is what is going to happen. VT has finite space. They'll add new machines as feasible and when they need space, they'll de-comission G5 towers. Maybe they'll add a couple racks of G5 xServes further down the road and pull a rack of towers. Rinse and Repeat.
They aren't going to completely dis-assemble Big Mac, redesign the entire room around 19" racks, then rebuild it from scratch. A supercomputer isn't worth jack if it's in pieces.

 

[HumanJHawkins]

Re: Xserve G5s to Replace PowerMacs in 'Big Mac'?

Originally posted by Macrumors
The big question, of course, is what happens to the original 1100 PowerMac G5s?

Is 1100 Dual 2.0 G5s really a significant figure? I mean, it would be a lot of Macs if they were in my living room, but I doubt they would be enough to effect worldwide (or even US) prices...

Anyone know how many dual 2.0s Apple sells per week?

 

[MacRAND]

Migration to Xserve is a reality, not a rumor.

Originally posted by desdomg
I think this rumor is fantasy.
If true Apple would be sending out the following message to all those G5 buyers:
"G5's were the fastest but now they are obsolete and are being replaced by Xserves"
And VTech would be spending more time building supercomputers than using them.
No, I think Apple will want to milk this success for all they can and V Tech will want to get some work done.

Here's the reality:
1. G5 dual 2GHz PowerMacs were the fastest at the time; and the smallest.
2. Other G5's will come along and will be faster and cooler to run
3. VT should have bought Xserves in August 2003, but none were available
4. VT considered Dell, IBM and other off-the-shelf computers, but selected the new Apple G5 with dual IBM server chips.
5. Everyone knew that the Xserve would eventually go G5 and both Apple and VT anticipated this.
6. VT successfully clustered off-the-shelf G5 towers into a supercomputer, even though Xserves would have been a far better choice, but at the time there was no choice.
7. Now there is a choice, which will reduce the space needed to house their certified supercomputer, and requiring far less power to run and cool the heat.
8. Had a dual chip G5 Xserve been available last August, what would VT have purchased? At least they chose PPC G5s over IBM, Dell and others.

The migration makes a lot of sense, and it should work wonderfully.
Do substituted 2200 CPUs invalidate their claim as a # whatever supercomputer?

Change and progress are always part of the mix.
How about 500 2.0's and 600 2.6's?

 

[Didge]

refurbs

http://www.smalldog.com/product/46388/atkibbles

 

[Cogz]

Ok, kinda silly rumor and here's why I think that...

Back when Big Mac was built they were talking about how they did all this custom work to build the cooling systems etc. They ALSO mentioned somewhere that they were also in the process of planning and building an entirely NEW facility that would be built from the ground up to house the successor to Big Mac.

I don't see the dismantling the previous supercomputer just yet, but there IS an upgrade path. This was mentioned awhile back when they were talking about adding non 2ghz powermacs into the cluster, and it was noted that it couldn't be done. All the nodes have to be of the same speed supposedly. So rather than add nodes that are slower than are available, they will just wait till the new facility is ready (and from what I understand, its even BIGGER than the one in use now) and build an entirely new supercluster. The old machines? I dunno, that is up in the air.

Btw, I have no inside info, I am just going off of stuff I remember reading on this and other websites.

Cogz

 

[lewdvig]

It's part of the deal cause they are going to buy another 3300 or 4400 units probably. You would do this too if meant getting another 15-20 million deal.

50 tera flops...

 

[Zech Marquis]

no need to get rid of them...

I would like to see VT hang on to the G5s and let the engineering school or CS school use them. OR, gradually add in the G5 Xserves, or even--add some G5 Xserves and make the Big Mac even FASTER...

 

[AidenShaw]

VaTech Racks - see www.liebert.com

The VA Tech racks are standard Liebert 46U 25" racks. If you go to the Liebert website, you can get the exact dimensions and everything, including a white paper on the VA Tech cluster (http://www.liebert.com/support/whitepapers/documents/virgtech.asp)

While it's true that the Xserve is based on a 19" rack - any carpenter with a 7" wide piece of metal and a drill could make a filler panel that would let them replace the Powermacs with 1U systems.

Cooling might be a big problem - the rack currently cools 12 dual systems, putting 46 systems in the same space might provoke the China Syndrome.

 

[Sir_Giggles]

I wouldn't rule out a major announcement within the next 12 months about G5 XServe-clusters overtaking the Earth Simulator as the top supercomputer.

The ECC RAM coupled with Xserve architecture, smaller size, lower power consumption, increased reliability, and cluster nodes bodes well for 4000+ units in the same space as occupied by Big Mac. I think Apple and it's VT partners are preparing to unleash the Number 1 Supercomputer using Apple computers.

The cost to build the #1 supercomputer would cost under $20 million, with lower operating costs over it's lifetime with the increased reliability of Xserve-grade Apple architecture, and you'll see a paradigm shift in supercomputing technology.

I don't imagine Apple and VT are aiming for #2 spot. We'll see really great news in the upcoming year. I bet my left nut.

 

[MOM]

To all the posters happily adding extra Xserves and increasing the power of Big Mac: Remember there are latency issues. These things don't scale in a linear fashion-diminishing returns. I don't know what the curve looks like, but I bet they can't just keep adding units and get more out of it. They'll probably never catch the Earth simulator until the G5 is at least 3.5 X faster than now. Also, funding issues in Academia ususally preclude any fancy sell the old buy the new scheme. I'm sure they had a budget, spent it on the G5 and unless the trade-in was in the original deal, there won't be anything else. You don't get funding to build a supercomputer and then have significant amounts of cash left a few months down the road. Everything is on paper and planned out.

 

[ffakr]

It was my understanding that the money for Big Mac came in the form of a Grant (mostly at least). VT got a grant to build a supercomputer.

If I'm not mistaken about this, it means..

1) They didn't deplete their budget on this, they were given money to create this.
2) Money follows success. When you get a grant for a supercomputer and you do this well for that little... you won't have too much trouble finding more money down the road.

I think it's entirely possible that more funding will follow and that some G5 xServes will show up before Big Mac II is laid out. It wouldn't take that many new racks to threaten the current #2 machine, but more importantly adding more nodes would fend off all the upcomming clusters that will be nipping at Big Mac's heels.

Further more, If they did get a large amount of grant funding, then the Students did not pay for the cluster. (in fact, tuition typically doesn't pay for that much around the school.. even were I work where tuition is $37,000/year).
This doesn't mean that the University would be likely to sell the machines to students, however.
Virginia Tech is a state school and as such, equipment is very difficult to remove from the state inventory, especially when it isn't obviously out of date. My last employer was a state University and we'd NEVER be able to sell recent and useful machines to students. In fact, the easiest way to get old machines to students would be to de-inventory them (if they were old enough), toss them in the trash, and tell the students where the dumpster was.

 

[Corpus_Callosum]

Use on campus

Originally posted by unc32
I'd bet that VT would keep them and distribute them around campus. Saves money for everyone.

This was my thought. Should be easy to find 1100 uses for a G5 on campus.

 

[Gee4orce]

Maybe they are going to distribute the original 1100 G5s around the University for use as dektop machines ?. With the advent of XGrid these machines could be act as supercomputer nodes in their down time

 

[vitaboy]

By the way, why does everyone keep on referring to the VT cluster as "Big Mac?" The thing has an official name now, and it's called "System X."

I just find it curious no one EVER mentions it by its real name.

 

[MacRAND]

Big Mac SuperComputer at Virginia Tech officially named "System X"? What?

Originally posted by vitaboy
By the way, why does everyone keep on referring to the VT cluster as "Big Mac?"
The thing has an official name now, and it's called "System X."
I just find it curious no one EVER mentions it by its real name.

Really? "System X"?
That's interesting!
Isn't that the name of a $600 Paintball Gun? and Apple's current OS?
Problem is, nobody I know has ever heard of System X when referring to the Virginia Tech (VT) 3rd ranked SuperComputer in the academic world (shhhh, all the big U.S. government supercomputers are SECRET; can't be verified because like "Area 51" in Nevada, they don't really exist, essentially don't count or can't be counted - take your pick).
While the VT Supercomputer may have been given an "Official Name" of System X at Virginia Tech apparently in late November 2003, the VT cluster of 1100 G5 Macs had already been nicknamed BIG MAC by the public and the media since at least early September 2003 and repeatedly referred to by that name alone in articles and reviews thoughout October and November 2003, AND essentially capturing everyones imagination by that moniker ever since. "System X" cannot compete.
VT or whomever can call it "System Blue" or "Number 3" for all anyone else cares, because the name Big Mac is what has stuck as its identity in the public mind (outside of being the premiere hamburger of McDonald's fame, with "special sauce, pickles, onions, lettuce, cheese, on a sesame seed bun...").

'Big Mac' Supercomputer one of World's Fastest
by Matthew Broersma
ZDNet (UK)
October 23, 2003, 6:21 PM PT
A supercomputer built by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1,100 dual-processor Macintosh G5 PCs looks likely to rank with the five fastest machines in the world, despite costing a relative pittance.
In preliminary performance tests carried out on 2,112 of the system's 2,200 processors, the so-called "Big Mac" cluster achieved 8.1 teraflops, or trillions of operations per second, according to figures published on Wednesday. The system is still being tuned, and final results won't be announced until next month, but the performance figure would place the Big Mac at No. 4 on the list of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers.
The figures are remarkable partly because Macintosh hardware has long been absent from the top 500 list, but also because of the Big Mac's cost. In a world where the top machines traditionally cost $100 million to $250 million, and take several years to build, the Mac-based system cost just over $5 million, and was put together in about a month. ...
The third-ranked system on the official list is, like the Big Mac, a cluster: it was built by Linux Networx for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2,304 2.4GHz Xeon chips, and runs at 7.6 teraflops. Another HP-built machine powered by Intel's Itanium 2 processors has not yet officially entered the list, but it would rank above the Big Mac, at 8.6 teraflops, according to Dongarra's figures.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103_2-5095026.html

Big Mac Terascale Computer Principal to Address NCTC Technology
ROANOKE Va., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Hassan Aref, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering and a former chief scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, will present the evolution of the Terascale Cluster computer built by Virginia Tech, nicknamed "Big Mac" by some.
Big Mac utilizes 1100 G5 Apple computers and technology devised at Virginia Tech to cluster the machines together. "Virginia Tech's idea was to develop a supercomputer of national prominence based upon a homegrown cluster," said Dr. Aref.
Big Mac now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers...
http://ask.elibrary.com/login.asp?c...wswire&author=&date=&ctrlInfo=&refid=ovft_key

SYSTEM X (not unique; no one cares)
A Sherlock search of the name "System X" turns up a line of PaintBall guns, a Lotto System-X, X-system music, and other things, including Apple's OS X, but only one small reference to the VT supercomputer on VT's own website. Most significantly, I cannot find any use of the moniker "System X" in relation to Virginia Tech's supercomputer project anywhere in the news media.

Besides vitaboy, who else noticed?


VT reference http://macsupport.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.eng.vt.edu/tcf/faq.html
paintball gun "System X Vengeance Pro 2.0" http://www.xtremez.com/paintball/product_list.asp?dept=91&last=91
music http://www.songsearch.com/catalog/x/x_system.html

Bottom line, "Big Mac" is the nom de plume that has stuck in the public consciousness for VT's BIG Mac G5 supercomputer, which incidentially runs on Apple's Operating System X (OS X).

 

[simply258]

Originally posted by ITR 81
The old G5's will be either refurbished or taken to another university wanting a similar setup or give to charity.

Yeah, OK. $5 mil to charity.

 

[Rod Rod]

Re: Big Mac SuperComputer at Virginia Tech officially named "System X"? What?

Originally posted by MacRAND
Really? "System X"?
That's interesting!

MacRAND, you have the Kleenex is facial tissue, Coke is soft drink, Xerox is photocopy (verb and noun) argument nailed down securely. Thanks.

Bottom line, "Big Mac" is the nom de plume that has stuck in the public consciousness for VT's BIG Mac G5 supercomputer, which incidentially runs onApple's Operating System X (OS X).

also, you misused the term "nom de plume." you probably meant "nom de guerre." the VT cluster isn't an author going under an assumed name; it's an object which had been given a temporary alternative name. Thank you and have a great day.

 

[jcgerm]

Originally posted by Gee4orce
Maybe they are going to distribute the original 1100 G5s around the University for use as dektop machines ?. With the advent of XGrid these machines could be act as supercomputer nodes in their down time

I find this whole rumor pretty funny. It took quite a while to assemble the thing and get it running the first time. If they're all replaced, it'll be a lot of wasted time.

And even if the 1100 Power Macs were replaced, Tech wouldn't use the computers. We aren't a big pro Mac University really. The whole engineering department (computer science included) only uses PC's. They REQUIRE that students own PC's because of the software we use. Hell, the CS department is migrating the undergraduate curriculum to C# currently.

The only significant number of Macs that the university uses other than the supercomputer is in the math emporium (Few hundred iMacs for general student usage, i.e. anyone who goes to the university). I don't really know why they use Macs because all the math software on them runs on PCs. Granted, there are a few CS professors that love Macs, but they're not in the majority. At the moment, there are probably only a few hundred students on campus that use Macs due to their majors.