Re: From a newsletter: IBM To Build Linux Supercomputer For NCSA

[Adam Tauno Williams <adam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the
>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has hired IBM to build a
>Linux-based supercomputer that should be the fastest computer in
>academia, and possibly one of the five fastest machines in the world.
>The system, which will consist of two IBM Linux clusters, will operate
>at a speed of about 2 trillion calculations per second and will be
>used to research everything from astrophysics to medical science.

Maybe KLUG should get one of these?!

>The cost of the system has not been specified.

Oh, maybe not.... :(
 
>This is the third Linux supercomputer IBM has built and "clearly one
>of the more substantial deals that we've closed so far," says David
>Gelardi, IBM's director of deep computing marketing and operations. He
>says that while "it's unlikely in the near term" that a great deal of
>companies are going to want these machines, IBM expects to see "more
>commercial or business-oriented customers" looking "very deliberately"
>at the systems. Says Gelardi, "We have a very heavy list of
>opportunities that we're looking at around the world."

Has anyone out there actually used any Linux HA or cluster stuff for a "real"
purpose?  I'm more interested in HA than cluster but I don't really get how it
works with much besides "read-only" apps like DNS or HTTP?  Are there apache
modules that let various servers keep the user's session, etc..., in a sane
condition?

And what's with IBM's fascination with the word "deep"?

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