Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University will
build an Infiniband cluster using Apple's new dual-processor Power
Mac computer with the 64-bit G5 processor.
When it is completed, the cluster of 1,100 nodes is expected to
rank among the most powerful in the world, according to Virginia
Tech. The university has been working with Apple for several months
to adapt the new Power Mac for its cluster.
The Apple cluster will be based at Virginia Tech's Computing
Center and will be used by the Institute for Critical Technology
and Applied Science at the university.
Mellanox Technologies supplied the I/O fabric, drivers, cards
and switches for the cluster. Cisco Systems provided the Gigabit
Ethernet switches and Liebert, a division of Emerson Electric,
supplied the cooling system.
Clustering technology is a popular choice of educational
institutions that want to deploy supercomputing power without
spending a great deal of money on a large machine. Apple's new G5
is said to offer excellent floating-point performance, a key
requirement of many scientific computing applications.
Shipments of dual-processor Power Macs to regular customers were
supposed to start in late August, but many users have reported on
Apple enthusiast sites that their shipments have been delayed.
Apple said the new Power Macs are currently shipping, and the
company is ramping shipments of the dual-processor model up to
production volumes over the next two weeks.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News Service