Comments on: Fast but going nowhere

Tom Quinn, vice president at Linux Networx, compares supercomputers with Concorde jets, arguing that productivity should trump speed.

[ScifiterX]

I'm sure the author realizes this but it still needs to be said.

The Virginia Tech computer was taken down for an upgrade and
not a speed upgrade. VT would have preferred to use G5 XServes
at the time they built the supercomputer cluster but at that time
Apple's only options were Powermac G5s and G4 XServes. So VT
ended up using towers. Apple & VT did arrange to replace
towers with smaller XServe units when they became available.
The XServes are comparable to the Powermacs the are
replacing in performance and as far as I've heard the VT cluster
will still be composed of 1100 Macs when the upgrade is
complete. What they will end up is the same processing power in
roughly a third the area.

Leaving out the facts doesn't help this Linux VP's credibility

One of two things happened here
Either he did the investigation, but choose to leave it out because it didn't help make his case.
In this case he's not a trustworthy journalist.
Or..
He didn't do the research and didn't know.
In this case he's not a very good journalist.

With that said I see he is not an objective party at all, but a VP of a Linux firm, so I guess it's OK. Free speech allows you to trash talk your competitors all you want, while acting as if you're an objective party.

Though I do agree with the basic arguement that having the Super Computing power and not having a use for it is a waste.

[charlie cooper]

Bigger point?

What do you think of his larger point about raw system performance versus productivity?

Valuation Requires Good Metrics

I like the point the article makes. It is important to distinguish between an attribute of a system and overall system performance. Drawing it down to something that is more accessible for most of us, CPU speed isn't everything. Arguably amount of RAM and bus speed are much more important. The weightings given to any of these attributes depends heavily on the usage profile.

This is really brought home by the metric used for the Top500 - Linpack. (See the link "mine is bigger than yours"). Linpack is a decent test, but it is far from comprehensive in measuring system throughput. Moreover, for any significant computation job, you had better know your particular usage profile. If you don't, you are likely to find that driving a Porsche in rush hour traffic is the same as driving a Yugo.

The same point is doubly true as the system perspective expands from relatively straightforward technical considerations to broader business concerns. The value of a business system depends not just on on pure speed and technical performance, but also on reliability, maintence cost, development cost, and (oddly enough) marketing.

[Dachi]

Well said.

n/t

[Andrew J Glina]

Wacky Example

I agree with your point but the example is bad and generally insulting. Concorde is an aircraft. JetBlue is an airline. Comparing British Airways to JetBlue would of been fair. Comparing Concorde to the failed Boeing SST (which cost about the same and never flew) would of been fair. But if you did these comparisons then you wouldn't be able to compare the USA to another country and come out on top. Instead you insulted one of the greatest engineering marvels of this century, one which the Brits/French achieved, the Russians achieved, but the closest that the US go to it was an expensive mock up.

Besides, the Russia Tu-144 was faster, and yes it did enter service. (Not for very long however.) Next time get you facts straight before you use absurd examples.

I feel better now.

Andrew J Glina

Productivity

I didn't see in the article where the author was comparing the USA to the UK?

The Concorde may be an amazing aircraft; however, I wouldn't put it at in the column of greatest marvels in aviation. Afterall, the SR-71 was flying faster than both the Tu-144 and the Concorde. Tu-144 was doomed because the Soviet Union couldn't keep up with its command economy and the Concorde was doomed because it's productive days were numbered. Making the comparison the US wasn't a leader in aviation because it didn't make a supersonic transport is somewhat strange considering at the same time the US had the only space shuttle and fastest hypersonic aircraft in use. The economy just seemed to dictate there should be the Concorde and that's it. To me, I can't see where making a supersonic transport was such as great idea -- especially if the only good market available was taken.

No doubt I would give British Airways an A for effort (I wouldn't give the French any credit -- name one good primarily French made aircraft not made by another country, i.e. don't name Airbus). The Mirage? Ha. Ha. Ha. The British can make aircraft. The French are aviation freeloaders.

I do think the authors point is ok -- although I do agree with you that the comparison was apples and oranges.

Apples and Oranges / Productivity vs Bragging Rights

I understand how a reader might complain at first glance about the comparison between an airline and a type of aircraft. But after consideration, I think the comparison is very apt and consistent with the point of the article.

The comparison of a profit making business based on proven if unspectacular technology (Jet Blue) vs glamorous technology draped in nationalist sentiment and the flag of your choice is a perfect parallel with Top500 dust collectors vs less glamorous machines which use all of their cpu cycles to produce value.

The apples and oranges disconnect is not the fault of the article, but a reflection of the Top500 promotional industry. The authors point is that we should be focusing on value (Jet Blue, Linux, and yes, even Microsoft) but we end up reading news about buzz (Concorde, Top500, .com bubble).

Job scheduling evolved in order to schedule and optimize the use of expensive computer resources toward the end of producing something. You can bet that companies that buy actual production machines based on Top500 technology will have evaluated their return on investment based on utilizing every spare CPU cycle.

Top500 bragging rights are little more than promotional offerings and welfare for engineers.

Missing the mark.

The US Government and research institutions are interested in large, fast machines not becuase they want to run many small jobs in a shorter period, but because they have computationally intensive jobs that will not run on smaller systems. Either the memory requirement of the program is too great or the processing speed of the computer is insufficient. Supercomputers enable programs like protein folding, thermonuclear reaction simulations, large scale weather simmulations, and neural simulations. These are hard, if not impossible, to run on a collection of Intel class machines.

[maxplanar]

Fact check first please

The system was not included in the list because the G5 desktop
computers with which it had been built are being replaced with
G5 Xserves, and at the time the list was being compiled,
the system was down for this switch-out. Right now it's coming
back up and in testing as the hardware rotation is completing.
Check the Virginia Tech website for pictures and progress of the
new, revised system.

Because the fundamental theme of your article was based on
your incorrect original premise, your entire article is bogus.
You should be ashamed.

Nailed it!

The main issue here is not the Virginia Tech system. The issue Mr. Quinn is discussing is the need to focus on productivity, not just flops. All the hype around the Virginia Tech system was based purely on the fact that it was assembled with Macs, not that it actually did anything worthwhile. Why should we care how big or fast a system is if it doesn?t make any meaningful contribution?

[andys]

It's about productivity ? not speed.

I checked out the Va. Tech cluster Web site (http://www.computing.vt.edu/research_computing/terascale/) and was unable to find out exactly what the big cluster they built will or was used for. Rather, as Mr. Quinn pointed out, it seems that they built it for bragging rights on having a top notch supercomputer and the know-how on how to build a system. (This doesn?t mean that they won?t put it to productive use in the future.)

The underlying point of Mr. Quinn?s article is the validity of the Top500 rankings. Sure, organizations will continue to build faster and faster systems. But Mr. Quinn?s point is that why go to all the time, energy, and resources to build a 10 tflop supercomputer if its not going to be used for anything other than bragging rights? Perhaps the Top500 rankings need to be tweaked to not only show how fast but how productive the fastest computers in the world are too.

[maxplanar]

If you had looked a little closer...

I found this at exactly the link you posted.

"Virginia Tech researchers are already active in a number of
areas that will benefit from the new supercomputing facilities,
says Kevin Shinpaugh, director of research and cluster
computing for the university. These include: nanoscale
electronics, quantum chemistry, computational chemistry,
aerodynamics through multidisciplinary design optimization,
molecular statics, computational acoustics, and the molecular
modeling of proteins."

[maxplanar]

Read the VT site for project info

From the Viginia Tech site -

"Virginia Tech researchers are already active in a number of
areas that will benefit from the new supercomputing facilities,
says Kevin Shinpaugh, director of research and cluster
computing for the university. These include: nanoscale
electronics, quantum chemistry, computational chemistry,
aerodynamics through multidisciplinary design optimization,
molecular statics, computational acoustics, and the molecular
modeling of proteins."

I call that use. This article needs to be retracted, it is not only
factually incorrect, it is borderline libellious, as there is a
suggestion that VT are spending investors money frivovously. I
am sure VT themselves would have an opinion on this.

[andys]

What has the cluster done? Nothing!

The article in no way states that Va. Tech is using it?s money frivolously. It?s accurately stating that the cluster hasn?t done anything other than qualifying for the Top500 list. The quote you pulled from their press release is all about future use. Anyone can build a fast system. Apparently not everyone can use one.

Missing the mark.

The US Government and research institutions are interested in large, fast machines not becuase they want to run many small jobs in a shorter period, but because they have computationally intensive jobs that will not run on smaller systems. Either the memory requirement of the program is too great or the processing speed of the computer is insufficient. Supercomputers enable programs like protein folding, thermonuclear reaction simulations, large scale weather simmulations, and neural simulations. These are hard, if not impossible, to run on a collection of Intel class machines.