LinuxInsider: Fast NASA Action Begets World’s Largest Linux Supercomputer

“The space shuttle Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003 sparked
development of the world’s second largest supercomputer, a system
with 10,240 Intel Itanium 2 processors capable of performing 51.87
trillion calculations per second.

“Not only did the supercomputer, appropriately dubbed Columbia,
stretch Linux’s performance boundaries, but it also strained NASA’s
installation capabilities and the manufacturing ability of the
hardware supplier, Silicon Graphics Inc. That’s because the
supercomputer went from design to deployment in 120 days rather
than the years typically associated with building such a
complicated system…”

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