Early users of new clustered systems from Dell Computer this week
said the vendor's use of Intel-based servers to deliver
supercomputer-like performance is proving to be a good way to
reduce hardware costs and improve scalability.
Dell announced its high-performance computing clusters technology
in February. The company is bundling its PowerEdge servers with
specialised clustering and message-passing software from MPI
Software Technology and Paralogic.
The bundles come configured with 16 to 128 processors and can be
tied together to build large systems for use in scientific
research, financial modelling and data-intensive business
applications.
Paris-based Compagnie Generale de Geophysique (CGG), for example,
used Dell's technology to build a 3,072-processor cluster that
analyses seismic data for oil companies.
Derrick Deaton, an executive vice-president at CGG, said the
cluster was delivering performance that is comparable to the
throughput of special-purpose supercomputers, at roughly a quarter
of the cost.
"The fact that you can tie so many [servers] together so
inexpensively allows you to generally get the same processing
power," Deaton said.
Sandia National Laboratories in the US is using a 128-node Dell
cluster to try to simulate the impact of nuclear weapons.
Apart from the lower costs, the fact that such clusters can
typically be built and put into use much more quickly than
traditional supercomputers is a big advantage, said Milt Clauser, a
principal member of Sandia's technical staff.
The increasing availability of open-source clustering and parallel
computing software and the growing power of Intel processors are
making high-performance clusters increasingly feasible, said Dan
Kusnetzky, an analyst at IDC.
IBM offers tools that help users assemble large Intel-based
clusters, Kusnetzky said. Hewlett-Packard plans to harness
commodity servers internally to offer utility like computer
services to customers, he added. But thus far, Dell is offering the
most formal program for building the clusters, Kusnetzky said.