As the Apple Turns: Scene 4772: Go Army, Beat Virginia Tech (6/22/04)

Go Army, Beat Virginia Tech (6/22/04)

Depressed about Virginia Tech's Terascale cluster-- aka "System X," aka "Big Mac," aka "the world's only Mac-based supercomputer"-- having dropped off the TOP500 list due to, of all things, a shipping delay? Well, soldier, turn that frown upside-down, or at the very least inside-out and sideways; it'll be back on the list come November, once again proving that Macs can chomp through numbers with the best of 'em. And when it returns, it'll apparently have some company-- company in uniform, no less. Tennnnn-HUT!!

Yes, faithful viewer Strongblade! was the first of many to point out that, as MacCentral reports, the U.S. Army has just commissioned its own G5-based supercomputing cluster, via a government contractor named Colsa. The Army, you may recall, is no stranger to using Macs in strategically appropriate situations, such as when it switched to Mac web servers for security reasons back in '99. (Hey, it looks like they even upgraded to Mac OS X!) This time around, the Army needs a supercomputer to "model the complex aero-thermodynamics of hypersonic flight," and when Colsa had completed its "year and a half of research" to find the best bang for the buck, the prospect of building a Virginia Tech-style G5 cluster came out on top: says a Colsa veep, "We did a best value competition and Apple won that competition," beating six other competitors. The names of the losers weren't disclosed, but we have a feeling that Mikey Dell is pouting a bit today.

So now Colsa's placed an order for 1,566 dual-2.0 GHz Xserve G5s (gee, what was that about Apple almost being caught up on backorders?) to out-cluster System X by a whopping 932 processors. The resulting supercluster-- which, even while still in conceptual form, is already pushing the limits of labored acronymity with its name: MACH 5, for "Multiple Advanced Computers for Hypersonic, G5"-- ought to stomp Virginia Tech's score by a good 40% or so. Scaling linearly, it sounds like MACH 5 should score maybe around 14.6 TFlops-- 15ish if they work out a few more kinks, less if the system is significantly hobbled by Colsa's decision to connect the nodes with standard gigabit Ethernet instead of InfiniBand like Virginia Tech used.

Colsa expects its cluster to be "online and working... by late fall," which implies that it might just be operational enough in time to qualify for the next TOP500 list, which, if the process is anything like last year's, requires systems to be working well enough to run its benchmarks by the beginning of October. That might be cutting it close, but with Colsa planning to receive and set up "300 Xserves a day" to get MACH 5 up and running, how could it not be ready in time?

Unfortunately, no matter what, the Macs will lose out to an Intel system this time around; MACH 5 will almost certainly finish well behind the new 19.9 TFlop Intel-based "Thunder" system currently in the number two spot. But hey, even a return to third place will be a major coup for the Mac platform, especially since MACH 5 is expected to cost only $5.8 million to build. So much for rampant government overspending, right?

Actually, wait a minute-- where is that rampant government overspending when you need it? Because if the Army would just spend, say, $10 million on its new cluster, it could capture the number two spot easily. And military budgets being what they are, why not blow $20 million and finally knock that snooty Earth Simulator out of the top spot? Sheesh, some people really need to take a good hard look at their priorities. What do we pay taxes for?

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The above scene was taken from the 6/22/04 episode:

June 22, 2004: The U.S. Army takes a page from the Hokies' playbook and buys its own G5 supercluster. Meanwhile, just as the downloadable music war in Europe starts to heat up, former leader OD2 ducks out the back, and sketchy rumors of no backwards compatibility in the Xbox 2 may further point to a PowerPC at its core...

Other scenes from that episode:

4773: Strategy: "Exit Stage Left" (6/22/04) You know what they say, the downloadable music business is kind of like the weather in New England: if you don't like what you see, close your eyes and wait thirty seconds... and when you open them again, you'll find yourself knee-deep in a flash flood with frostbitten elbows, bugs in your teeth, and your hair on fire...
4774: The Vegas Odds Get Slimmer (6/22/04) If you've been tuning in for any length of time, you probably know that, despite the fact that we last played a console game when the Atari 2600 reigned supreme, we here at the AtAT studios are somewhat obsessed with the Great Xbox 2 Processor Controversy...

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