Leveraging Linux for Supercomputing

"Thus, aggregation provides an affordable, virtual x86 platform with large, shared memory. Server virtualization for aggregation replaces the functionality of custom and proprietary chipsets with software and utilizes only a tiny fraction of a system's CPUs and RAM to provide chipset-level services without sacrificing system performance.

"High-performance computing (HPC) applications such as numerical simulation -- whether for forecasting, mechanical and structure simulation, or computational chemistry -- require a large number of CPUs for processing. To meet these needs, customers must buy a large-scale system that enables parallel processing so that the simulation can be completed in the shortest possible time. Such solutions are available in two forms: scale-up and scale-out.

"Traditionally, scale-up customers have had no choice but to purchase high-cost, proprietary shared-memory symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems for HPC needs with proprietary operating systems such as AIX, Solaris, HPUX and others. These SMP systems require significant investment in system-level architecture by computer manufacturers."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• AMD Powers Half of the Top Ten Supercomputers(Nov 19, 2010)
• IBM Builds on Hadoop with New Storage Architecture(Nov 19, 2010)
• Software bug derailed Windows bid to top Linux in supercomputing speed(Nov 18, 2010)
• China takes the lead in world's fastest computing with Linux(Oct 29, 2010)
• DragonDisk: A Free Amazon S3 Desktop Client For Linux And Windows(Oct 05, 2010)
• Intel Blurs The Lines Between 4 And 6 Cores(Jul 20, 2010)
• Amazon opens supercomputing service(Jul 14, 2010)