Cell-based Server Blade Demonstrated 365
slashflood writes "Only a few clients in a hotel room near Los Angeles had the chance to see the first Cell based server blade running Linux 2.6.11. 'We demonstrated the prototype to show that Cell continues to mature. The product is expected to have several times higher performance compared to conventional servers,' said an IBM engineer."
Great (Score:4, Funny)
huh? (Score:3, Funny)
sounds like a drug deal going down.
Re:huh? (Score:2, Funny)
lol. that's right,it's in LA. Maybe they were looking for a cure for Arnold's tumor.
[Arnold voice] IT'S NOT A TOOMOR!!! [/Arnold voice]
IBM should seed Cell Processors to Linux clubs... (Score:2)
They could call the program "Cellular Automata."
probably only running on the central powercore (Score:4, Insightful)
That applies to every program you want to use the apus, so the chance that this happens overnight/soon is pretty slim. Heck, they might even need to rewrite the benchmark programs for it.
Because they have not released any real benchmarks and only talk about theoretical numbers, i think they have not finished the porting fully (or have very disappointing benchmark numbers).
Giving early acces to LUGs would be nice for the street creds, but will not speed the code development of the mostly proprietary code that needs to run on it. Giving it to Gimp/Blender/other developers might work, if it comes with a crash course cell programming.
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
The Cell's bonus processors are absolutely great for DSP and multimedia apps, such as that we see in the Cell.
But, they are going to be at a strict disadvantage in data retrieval and pushing operations-- which is, incidentally, exactly what most servers, such as a file, web or database server, need to be best at!
What kind of servers *ARE* these??
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
makes you wonder why sony wanted these for standalone consumer devices but the on-the-fly clustering opportunities should be very attractvie to a lot of IT shops.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Using a two-tier or three-tier approach to client/server architecture, with something like a full-duplex GigE connection to fat, diskless clients and you have some real potential.
A fat client (512+ Mb RAM, 1 CELL processor) that can use the backend for the more heavy-lifting tasks would be a fantastic setup for a lot of businesses.
-Charles
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Insightful)
If you're running a rendering farm, then the Cell is a great tool. (And, if you think about it, a game console is essentially a low end rendering farm.) If you're running a word processor, however, SIMD instructions are useless. If you're performing a standard query against a database, SIMD instructions are useless. If you're sending an electronic mail, hey, guess what? SIMD instructions are useless.
I think that IBM Microelectronics is trying to Cell their new processor in the hopes of Celling their bosses on the (dubious) proposition that they can recoup the losses they've seen on their contract with Sony. They've packaged up the right buzzwords, and they're creating a lot of fog. I sort of doubt that it will work.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
When you move to things like editing audio & video, print rasterizing, hi-res photo deforms and filters, then it'll kick in.
Think of what this sort of processing will do to GIMP/Photoshop filter speed... Or DVD/music ripping/encoding/decoding... Or audio mixing...
What you sayin'? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe it's late, but am I the only one who thought he was saying that IBM had "fat, dickless, clients"?
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
I think Pixar may want one or two.
Have your heard of numerical computation ? (Score:2)
Re:Have your heard of numerical computation ? (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
If I were any of those companies, I'd be a lot more worried about that.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
The PS3 using the Cell is going to drive the price of the base components down. While IBM blades may stay a bit pricey, you can bet there will be others at a fraction of the cost of big iron.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
I also can't remember who owns them now...
Ah, bought by SGI. Spun to separate business unit. Sold to Tera. Renamed back to Cray.
Rumors were they got the gov't contract because too much "supercomputing" was turning towards clusters and the gov't wanted to make sure at least one HPC company survived in th
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Data retrieval? You have to remember that there's a 25.6 GByte/s bandwidth to main mem! And they each have 256k of single-cycle access memory (i.e. take your 32k L1 and shove it).
It's not like the SPEs are only capable of SIMD vector operations... they are real CPUs with the memory limitation and single-thread limitation. It's just that they do have
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
Cheap ones.... at least as far as IBM is concerned. A large chunk of the money customers are paying is no longer going to be poured straight into the bank account of their competitor, Intel. They can either make huge mark-ups, or more likely bump up the specs to amazing levels to add to the buzz around Cell.
IBM's long-term strategy always has been to position the Power architecture as the successor to x86, so this is a logical move, after their success in ensuring that
The Cell concept is really cool (Score:2, Interesting)
Putting them together into a rackable case looks to be very cool and finally putting a nail in the Windows coffin will be a delicious treat for IBM (the Cell ain't x86).
I can't wait to get my hands on my PS3 and see what I can do.
In the meantime, I just wish IBM had Cell samples available for a reasonable price. I just can't afford one for hacking yet!
Re:The Cell concept is really cool (Score:2)
Re:The Cell concept is really cool (Score:2)
That's odd... (Score:3, Funny)
Very promising technology= investment opportunity? (Score:4, Interesting)
The first Cell based desktop computer will be the fastest desktop computer in the industry by a very large margin. Even high end multi-core x86s will not get close. Companies who produce microprocessors or DSPs are going to have a very hard time fighting the power a Cell will deliver. We have never seen a leap in performance like this before and I don't expect we'll ever see one again, It'll send shock-waves through the entire industry and we'll see big changes as a result.
Re:Very promising technology= investment opportuni (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Very promising technology= investment opportuni (Score:5, Informative)
After you've read Blatchford's write-up, read this for a reality check:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050124-4551 .html [arstechnica.com]
It uses such terms as 'hogwash' and 'wild-eyed and completely unsubstantiated claims'. Ouch.
Uhhh (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that on the x86 platform there was little revolution, or one little seen, may be more a reflection of the platform itself.
Honestly, people who can't see the value of making true and powerful use of SIMD are missing the boat. That is what the future is all about.
You look at your cellphone, mp3 player, mp4 codecs, digital tvs and radios, it is SIMD that makes all th
Re:Uhhh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uhhh (Score:2)
Go write some VMX code and compare it to MMX - especially if you have any streaming/number crunching to do.
Re:Uhhh (Score:2)
The only reason MMX instructions exist, is because at the time (about 1996), there where some large companies which had initiatives for building powerful multi-media chips for PC add-on cards.
MMX was introduced by Intel to kill off those initiatives.
Re:Very promising technology= investment opportuni (Score:2)
correct me if i'm wrong.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:correct me if i'm wrong.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sun's Niagara is aimed at this market, where the work is of great quanitity, not huge number crunching. This could mean searching, web page serving, and streaming media. So if you need to handle thousands of requests, this type of processor is ideal. Of course we won't truly know until one of these massively multicore beasts is out in the wild and can be tested in a realistic scenario.
Re:correct me if i'm wrong.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting quote from the article (Score:3, Interesting)
From TFA. Interesting, considering that they're claiming that the PS3 will run 5-10 faster than this.
Re:Interesting quote from the article (Score:2)
Re:Interesting quote from the article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting quote from the article (Score:2)
I'm just curious (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Single CPU
2) Multiple CPU
3) Multiple Machines in a grid with single CPUs
4) Multiple Machines in a grid with multiple CPUs
5) Multiple grids with many machines
6) Multiple cores in a single CPU
7) Multiple cores in multiple CPUs
7) Multiple cores in multiple CPUs in a grid
8)
We also went from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit to now 64-bit and beyond. 64-bit words.. nice! Of course, more parallelism means more threads for more simultaneous processes, and 64-bit means twice as much "word" space than 32-bit, but what next?
It's truly mind boggling, and it's a great time to be in IS/IT!
What I want to know is, how much further? How can we increase the multiples more? For example, what happened to quantum processing and multiple states for a bit instead of 0 and 1? When can I count my bits 0, 1 and
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2, Insightful)
What would you do with a 'bit' that was "pretty close to 1" or "just a bit over 0"? You no longer have any exact state of data which every language I've ever used has depended on.
I like my 1's and 0's just fine thanks
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2)
There's also absolutely no reason that a digit can't be treated as boolean... if it's zero, it's false
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2)
If it was going to use transistors, it could be done the same way as with binary digits, by varying the voltage. Instead of having a range between 0 and 0.8 volts = 0 and a range between 2 and 5 volts = 1, you make the chip recognize (for example) 0-0.8 = 0, 1.5-3 = 1, 3.6-5 = 2. Wow, a trinary computer.
Bringing it from the transistor level to the practical level, a bit harder....
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2)
"Trinary signal apparatus and method
Extended trinary signal apparatus includes window comparator logic having first and second inputs for first and second trinary input signals, wherein each the trinary input signal can be a high, low or mid state, and an output for outputting signals dependent on the states of the first and second trinary input signals. A switch, which is connected to one of the first and second inputs, can be selectively activated in one phase
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2, Funny)
7) Multiple cores in multiple CPUs in a grid
8)
Profit!!!!!!!
Actually, you have two sevens, 8) should read: 9) Profit!!!!!!!
Re:I'm just curious (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't worry about quantum computing. It's only going to help the NSA as there are only a limited number of algorithms which will be worth it, namely factoring prime numbers. The power requirements are going to be huge, and by the time they figure ou
Re:I'm just curious (Score:5, Informative)
You mean deriving the factors of products of primes, right?
OS X on Cell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux wont do it (not in the desktop arena, it does kick ass in the server area though) but OS X could very well.
That would be something to see, and I would bet, that much software that was OS X capable on Cell would ALSO be Linux capable (perhaps a recompile by the vendor? maybe native... not certan here.)
Would be nice to have a stable easy to use OS as the dominant platform. Of course, the irony would be that if this did become the case, then I suppose that Apple would eventually become as lazy and as dominant as Microsoft.
*sigh*
Still, nice to dream!
Re:OS X on Cell? (Score:2)
Re:OS X on Cell? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OS X on Cell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of us in content creation could use a little help here...
That some people are stumped by the utility of using Cell processors in Apple-built blade servers to take the place of XServes, or for what purpose would there be in 1-4 Cells in the Mac of the average Joe makes me really doubt the usefullness of our public schools.
Power users being able to add 15 animation effects with translucency and kenetics in Motion to a video with 8 layers of HD video and then watch it automatically copy straight to a DVD-R - without rendering time - makes us wet with anticipation...
and wondering when the hell hard drives are going to be able to catch up.
I would easily give up my right nut for a Apple-based blade server now that the Pro apps are starting to use XGrid for co-processing the heavy lifting portions of our work. My DVD projects of 2 hours still take long over an hour to render 2-pass MPEG2 on a high end DP G5. Multiples faster than realtime, could the Cell do.
But the average Joe? Why does Safari have to use a 8 core DSP? its doesn't, dumbass. But that's not all people do with their macs...
That iDVD render? What render? The lag is now your DVD burner - 100%.
Encoding settings for your iPod, vs. encoding settings for your files. iTunes could EASILY convert - on the fly - Apple Lossless encoded files to some kind of smaller, lossy codec as it filled your iPod. No waiting except for your iPod's slow-ass hard drive.
all this - while the Cell is still using a basic G5 at its core... so, no, Word isn't going to get any punch - but if Cell processors are as cheap as G5's, then what the hell is the issue here?
I'm damn ready for radical leaps in DSP... i'm fscking sick and tired of watching progress bars, DAMNIT! and if the Cell can do everything IBM says it can - hell, yeah, bring it on.
Server guys - try to think beyond your damn file services.
Apple is hardly any better than Microsoft (Score:2)
Apple is already as arrogant and obnoxious as Microsoft. For example, despite the fact that OS X in its current form would not exist without the efforts of the Open Source community, Apple is still actively working behind the scenes [macworld.co.uk] in Europe to destroy the ability of the open source community to work with their proprietary formats [news.com.au].
! Graphics only (Score:5, Insightful)
Server programs are ahead of the curve at this point because they've had multiple CPUs in abundance for a long time. However, even today it doesn't make sense for games like Doom III to avoid taking advantage of this hardware when possible (for instance, the G4/G5 systems have had dual processors for YEARS but Id won't use them properly). For petessake, calculate audio on one processor and AI on the other...
Re:! Graphics only (Score:2)
Carmack is one smart cookie. I suspect t
Re:! Graphics only (Score:2)
Anyway, the cell will hopefully drive forward the adoption of multithreaded game engines (for
Re:! Graphics only (Score:2)
Anyway, the cell will hopefully drive forward the adoption of multithreaded game engines
i.e. the Cell, the processor for the PS3 and with roots in IBM's Power/PowerPC processors, is what is driving game engines forward. The XBox360 is also Power/PowerPC based. There is no x86 bias whatsoever, but rather a console bias. Rightly so, because those *do* drive the industry whether you like it or not. Macs and Linux certainly don't. Go back and crawl in your hole.
Carmack has tried... (Score:4, Informative)
Some types of computing problems (e.g the compositing app I work on) multithread very well, and some just don't.
It's possible Q3A might thread better on a Cell, due to high bandwidth between SPEs - but then again, he was using a the second thread for vertex processing, which is done by the GPU these days anyway.
IBM Blade Server Management (Score:5, Interesting)
This won't go anywhere if IBM doesn't clean up its blade management console.
I've been doing extensive research on blade servers recently for my company, and when it comes down to it, IBM's centralized management for blade servers is hands down the worst in the industry. RLX used to be the best, but they're out of the business now. HP was #2, now they're the leader. Egenera is doing some really cool things, but their setup is just way too expensive (almost 5 times the price of the other leading blade systems).
So, even if these cell blades were to be the coolest thing ever, if IBM doesn't make an investment into improving their management software, no one's going to buy these things unless they already have a large investment in IBM hardware or are just downright masochistic.
Basically, what it comes down to is, someone needs to buy the RLX software, it's on the market now. If I were IBM, I'd buy this and retool it for IBM blades. What I'm scared of is Dell buying the RLX software. Dell blades suck, but with the RLX console, even I would consider buying Dell blades, that RLX management software is just that good.
In short, if I were IBM, I'd buy RLX in a second, and catapult myself to being the industry leader in blade servers.
Re:IBM Blade Server Management (Score:2)
It's more likely that the first will happen, as IBM has had problems enough acquiring other's software and using it for any purpose (take a look at the SCO case). And with their investment so deeply in Linux right now, I'd say this is just a bit over the horizion for Big Blue.
Re:IBM Blade Server Management (Score:3, Insightful)
The future for Apple as well? (Score:2, Interesting)
(Think Secret's take: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0505itunes49.html [thinksecret.com]
I think this is a better indication for Apple's future processors, as opposed to the Intel rumours.
Re:The future for Apple as well? (Score:2)
Deep thought... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Deep thought... (Score:4, Informative)
http://seclists.org/lists/linux-kernel/2005/May/2
Re:Deep thought... (Score:4, Informative)
They already have.
One of the more interesting posts: http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/5/13/218 [lkml.org]
Arnd Bergmann works for IBM, btw.
Re:Deep thought... (Score:2)
Re:Deep thought... (Score:2)
We have a license to the source, but they don't have to give it to us. What this means is that anyone who has it can give it to us and IBM can't stop them. The GPL is very clear that you only have to give source to those who get the binary, but the license has a guaranteed sublicense to whoever you give it to, so they can give it to anyone.
This is all moot anyway, as IBM has posted the sources to LKML already.
x86 emulation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Low enough heat... (Score:3, Interesting)
If the Cell has low enough heat to be fitted in a blade, perhaps a future version could be cooled well enough to find its way into a PowerBook?
Would *that* shut up the "Apple has to switch to Intel to have faster cooler laptop chips!!! or they're D000000Med!!!!! " crowd? Maybe? Perhaps?
Re:Low enough heat... (Score:2)
Have you ever seen... or even listened to... the kind of fans IBM has in their BladeCenter?
Two large drum fans - the entire thing sounds like a jet engine when it powers up. It takes it a while before it settles down to a much much slower speed - but I suppose it is surplus cooling capacity which could prove handy to ship a blade which has high heat dissipation needs.
Heat sinks (Score:2, Interesting)
An alpha teaser I wonder, or a bit of intended misdirection?
I wonder (Score:2, Interesting)
If so, did he say them of his own accord, or was he instructed to say certain things? And even if that is so, it is still refreshing to hear somebody besides a marketing or management bot speak to the press.
show us the numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
So, what kind of SPECfp numbers does the thing get? What kind of BLAS performance does it get?
They have 2.6.11 running on it, so compiling the benchmarks should be trivial. If they haven't published anything yet (I haven't seen it), we have to believe that the numbers are less than impressive.
(Another company used to make inflated claims about the performance of their processors by computing theoretical maximums for a few SIMD instructions, unachievable in most real code. When people actually did some real benchmarks and published them against the wishes of the company, they found that their processor was no faster MHz for MHz than Pentium on real code with real compilers.)
Re:show us the numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to say, this Cell is really a great marketing coup ! Everyone is speaking of this processor, even in the biggest newspapers of the mainstre
Re:show us the numbers (Score:3, Informative)
It'll run them exactly as fast as any other PPC 970 core. As far as I can see from the information that's been released so far, to use the coprocessors at all you'll need to redesign your application around an asymmetric coarse-grained parallel processing model, with explicit memory management to feed data to the shared RAM the SPUs have access to.
IBM sucks! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:IBM sucks! (Score:3, Funny)
The only consolation is that with this new processor, Dragonball Z 'Perfect Cell' jokes will never get old.
Oh, wait...
Cell-based ideal compute servers... (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in the biotech industry and we use computer farms and grids for all sorts of computationally intensive tasks: biopolymer sequence alignments, docking simulations, protein modeling, high-throughout 3D mass spectral analysis, etc.
A server with cell-blades and some minor tweaks to our software would generate a tremendous "bang-for-the-buck".
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:4, Funny)
Got to use the floating point power.
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:5, Funny)
Intel Inside (the warning, NOT the logo!~)
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:2)
There are only insignificant if it was a case of 4.0 x 3 =12.0 in that case the 0 isn't significant. Since the answer is actually 12
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:3, Informative)
How do measure the computational power of the human brain?
Here's a 6 year old napkin calculation [thinkquest.org].
They give a figure of 10^8 MIPS. Figure 1:8 for a MIPS:MFLOPS ratio. So ~13 TFLOPS.
The IBM Blue Gene/L is the current record holder at 135 TFLOPS. That puts it at the power of 10 human brains if that napkin calculation has any validity.
For average consumer computers...
The ordinary computer of Aug. 2004 performed 18,000 MIPS. Ref [absoluteastronomy.com]
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:2)
The Computer is a General Purpose device. The Human Brain is Not.
I think your calculations need to be revised.
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:3, Funny)
It must run a Reduced Instruction Set.
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:4, Insightful)
The mind might indeed be a Turing machine, but it's a very different architecture and OS than the ones we know about.
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:2, Funny)
with the handy process of "aging" i think i can actually meet that goal earlier if the computer and i just agree to meet in the middle.
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:3, Funny)
Dude,
By 2030 my potplant will be smarter than my brain.
Oh, the tragedy of alcohol abuse and growing old...
Re:Now we just need to ask it tough questions! (Score:2, Interesting)
Regards
Steve
It's not Sony's hype (Score:4, Informative)
NEWSFLASH! (Score:2)
Additionally, the cream of the crop of that website know more about hardware than the people designing the chip (IBM and Sony).
Yeah, hype is why I ignored anything but the raw specs and architectural papers on the cell.
Re:Now, if we can only get hold of the distro... (Score:2)