IBM Cell-based blade system now available

Via Supercomputing Online:

Finally some good news so that we can all forget about the TOR-craze for a moment. Supercomputing Online reports that IBM announced today the availability of the IBM BladeCenter QS20, a Cell Broadband Engine based addition to existing IBM infrastructure:

“The IBM BladeCenter QS20 is a Cell BE-based blade system designed for businesses that can benefit from high performance computing power and the unique capabilities of the Cell BE processor to run graphic-intensive applications and is especially suitable for computationally intense, high performance workloads across a number of industries including digital media, medical imaging, aerospace, defense and communications.

The IBM BladeCenter QS20 extends and deepens IBM Power Architecture technology and is complementary to our existing rack-optimized and blade server products based on Intel Xeon, AMD Opteron, and IBM POWER processors.”

One double-wide blade holds two Cell BE processors running at 3.2 GHz and is to be seen as an extension to IBM’s System Cluster 1350. The datasheet mentions 1 GB of RAM (512 MB per processor – does that mean that both CPUs work individually rather than in SMP? I think it’s just an irritating fact in the data-sheet), a 40-GB harddrive, two Gigabit-Ethernet NICs. As an option 1 or 2 InfiniBand 4x adaptors can be connected via PCI-Express. The blade runs Fedora Core 5-based Linux for Cell.

OK, so much for the details, now let’s fire up the mighty oracle-mode: Is that possibly the hardware-basis for the Los Alamos Roadrunner supercomputer we’re all speculating about? Would that possibly mean that the mentioned CBEs of Roadrunner aren’t tightly integrated Co-processors to the Opteron-CPUs? Are they just going to deploy a 1350 together with a bunch of QS20 and wire them up via InfiniBand and Gigabit-Ethernet?

Now that would be cheap and kinda disappointed, wouldn’t it…? And i lose a fiver. Ah, I’m not. Nobody accepted the bet :-) Know more? Are you one of the lucky ones who already deployed a QS20? Tell me! Or use the fancy comment-function.

Tech Tags: IBM HPC rumours

LANL: Opteron + Cell = Roadrunner?

Via Heise Newsticker, El Reg:

The Register claims that IBM proposes a new concept for Los Alamos’ new upcoming supercomputer, code-named “Roadrunner”. Both companies are bidding on the project for months, so this solution would be, well, at least very interesting. El Reg writes:

The lab will announce that IBM will build Roadrunner using a hybrid design that makes use of Opteron and Cell systems, according to a report from online rag CNET. The publication cites “sources familiar with the machine” as claiming that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which oversees LANL, will reveal IBM’s win “in the coming days.”

So The Reg is quoting CNET, but not giving any pointers, couldn’t find the source yet, so… I file this under “rumours” :)

There was no word yet about how the Cell- and Opteron-CPUs should be integrated; I bet a fiver that they’re going to use HyperTransport and install a Cell-CPU as a Co-processor to the Opterons – probably similar to the technology DRC Computer is using for their Virtex-FPGA integration-solution.

If not, what else would be possible? PCI-Express, for sure, but probably too expensive on a large scale. Ideas, do you know more than Big Reg? Tell me! Or use the fancy comment-function.

Tech Tags: AMD IBM HPC supercomputing rumours

Bite me: Cray announces “Black Widow”

Via Dailytech:

Cray announced it’s latest supercomputer, dubbed “Black Widow”. It’s not completly clear on what kind of hardware the machine will be based, speculations claim it might be again Opteron-base, as the already existing Cray XT3.

We remember, the Cray XT3 is a massive-parallel supercomputer based on the Opteron-CPU; however, each Opteron-CPU got it’s Hyper Transport Channel connected to Cray’s proprietary SeaStar-chip, which incorporates 6 links to other CPUs, a DMA-controller and a service-port.
All the CPUs are interconnected in a 3D-Torus-Topology.

XT3 and “Black Widow” are both based on Cray’s “Rainier scalable infrastructure”.

More corporate tech-talk in Cray’s press release.

Sidenote: The Oak Ridge National Labs (already covered today) already has a XT3, codenamed “Jaguar“. Jaguar is no. 13 on the Top500 list. It’ll be upgraded to dual-core Opterons and boost it performance from currently 25-TeraFLOPS to 50-TeraFLOPS. Futures upgrade-phases are pointed out, once again, at Dailytech.

Tags:
supercomputer, cray, ornl, xt3, black widow