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The not-so-secret HPC that’s going to bring SGI back to superiority as the premium SSI HPC provider has finally been announced: Ultraviolet.

UV features the fifth generation of the NUMAlink interconnect, offering a 15 GB/sec transfer rate, MPI offload capability in the UV hub chip, and direct access up to 16 TB of shared memory. The system can be configured with up to 2048 Nehalem-EX cores shipping Q2 next year from Intel in a single system image, and as with the 4700 multiple SSIs can be federated together while preserving the single global address space. When I was being briefed on the launch before the show, Jill Matzke, Altix product manager, reminded me that SGI has been very active in the Linux community: all the IP needed to make this shared-memory goodness work has been contributed back to the SUSE and Red Hat communities, so you can actually load a stock distro on your UV when it shows up, and everything will work.

Price and availability are still a bit fuzzy, as SGI is waiting for Intel to announce the new Nehalem chips that it uses, but it’s great to see SGI rising back to HPC powerhouse status.  I’ll be meeting with SGI tomorrow afternoon and hope to get more details then.

via SGI finally announces make-or-break HPC platform | insideHPC.com.

Hardware hpc, sc09, sgi, ultraviolet

SGI’s earnings call, covering the quarter ending September 25th, seems to show the company in a decent light, with sales of $100.1M.  The merger with Rackable was a bit rocky, sucking up a good portion of Rackable’s cash and requiring some extensive restructuring, but:

“SGI delivered a solid quarter in terms of revenue, gross margin and operations,” said Mark Barrenechea, SGI’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “Operationally, our integration is ahead of schedule in most key areas. We also introduced new products that could expand our addressable market by over $1.7 billion while investing for long-term growth.”

Some other interesting tidbits is that over 10% of its quarterly non-GAAP sales come from “long-time” customer Amazon, which was news to me.  A full third of their sales came from ISP’s, and a quarter came from Government and Defense contractors.

via SGI-Rackable combo posts big revenue gains • The Register.

Hardware amazon, economic, finance, sgi

Hot on the heels of the TACC announcement, University of Tennessee’s National Institute for Computational Science (NICS) have announced they will receive $10M from the NSF over the next 4 years to build a new “Center for Remote Data Analysis & Visualization (RDAV)”.  Just like TACC, first order of business in a new machine:

Much of RDAV will rely on a new machine named Nautilus that employs the SGI shared-memory processing architecture. The machine will feature 1,024 cores, 4,096 gigabytes of memory, and 16 graphics processing units. The new SGI system can independently scale processor count, memory, and I/O to very large levels in a single system running standard Linux. This flexibility will allow the RDAV team to configure a system uniquely capable of analyzing and visualizing petascale data sets, promising TeraGrid users new levels of scientific understanding.

And this impressive quote from Sean Ahern, research associate professor at the University of Tennesse and visualization task lead at ORNL where the machine will sit:

“I believe this will be the largest shared-memory machine for analysis on the planet,” said the project’s Principal Investigator (PI) Sean Ahern, who is currently the visualization task lead at ORNL and will serve as director of RDAV. “No one has ever done this before. The new system will handle data analysis algorithms that can’t be deployed on more traditional distributed memory systems.”

Of course, hardware isn’t all.  The center will also feature a full staff of visualization & analysis experts to aid researchers, and be available to TeraGrid researchers.

Read the full press release from the University of Tennessee and find some information about the organization of the RDAV center and some of the other individuals involved in this project.after the break, or read the announcement from their National Institute for Computational Sciences.

Read more…

Hardware, Science nsf, ornl, remotedisplay, sgi, visualization

There was some confusion initially about yesterday’s SGI Octane III announcement, and some news has come out that might help to answer some of the questions.

One big question was how you got 10 “trays” but 19 “nodes” when using the Xeon 3400 or Atom processors.  Apparently the system uses only a single set of disk drives for booting, so most of the nodes operate “diskless”.  In a single “tray” you can fit two separate nodes when using these smaller processors, which means 20 “nodes”.  However, a node must be sacrificed in order to make space for the drives, which yields the final number of 19 nodes, 38 Atom cores.  Also, the Xeon 3400 configuration is not currently available.  Right now the Atom build is available, and the Xeon 3400 will be available “soon” although no firm deadline is given.

News about the SGI Octane III has gotten around:

• BoingBoing
• EnGadget
• Gizmodo
• and many others.

While those of us that work with such systems regularly already know, one common misconception going around is that the system is a massive 80-core 1TB monster computer, rather than the 10-node system it actually is.  That means:

• It won’t run Photoshop any faster.  As a single computer, it’s just a regular dual-processor/quad-core 96GB Ram machine.
• It won’t set any Crysis benchmark records.  As a single computer with a video card, it’s a dual-processor/quad-core 144GB Machine with a regular NVidia card.
• You won’t be loading up any gigantic datasets on it with your usual stuff.  You’ll need some that can properly utilize the distributed architecture like the new Fieldview, Paraview, or Visit.
• For 3D rendering, it might actually help. It won’t make a single render go much faster, but think of it as a “Render Farm at your Desk”, where each of the 10 nodes is a render node and you can see how it might help in certain circumstances.

So there you go.. Hopefully this will help answer a few of the questions I’ve seen floating around the internet.  Have anything to add?

Hardware sgi

SGI is pulling back the curtain on their latest hardware offering, the “Octane III”, taking them back to some of the names of yesteryear.

“Octane III makes supercomputing personal again,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, president and CEO of SGI. “Our customers have been asking for office environment products with large core counts that are easy to use and whisper-quiet. Octane III brings all of this to the HPC professional, and enables a new era of personal innovation in strategic science, research, development and visualization.”

It currently comes in three configurations, available on their website.

• OC3-19DV1 Intel 1-way – 19 Dual-Core Single Socket systems, for 38 cores on 19 nodes, 76GB Ram max.
• OC3-10TY12  Intel 2-Way – Ten dual-socket quad-core Xeons, 80 cores on 10 nodes, 960GB Memory total.
• OC3-TY11 “Graphics Workstation” - A single dual-socket Quad-Core xeon board with 144GB Ram, but 7 PCI-Express slots (2 x16, 4 x8, and a x4).

The 10TY12 looks pretty nice to pack into a desktop system, but the rest are fairly underwhelming. Even the “Graphics Workstation” seems rather unimpressive by modern standards with 8 cores & 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots that could come with pretty much any modern PC.  Am I missing something?

Update: One interesting tidbit pointed out by an observant reader is that the press release indicates that you have the Xeon 3400 (Lynnfield) Processor as an option, however it’s nowhere to be found on the SGI builds or the PDF Datasheet they provide.  I’m attempting to reach someone inside SGI for details on this.

Update #2: Over at InsideHPC, John West has more details about the system, such as:

• The 960GB of Memory is not shared (“it’s not a baby ultraviolet”), it’s 96G visible by each node, requiring you to have parallelized applications to use it.
• In the graphics configuration, it’s a classic vertically mounted motherboard so you get the 1 motherboard in the system, further adding to the “huh?” factor.
• He states that the Xeon 3400 configuration is for 40 cores per machine.

Update #3: Just heard back from SGI.  The Xeon 3400 option isn’t actually available yet.  It’s planned to be an option in the future, but currently your only options are the existing quad-core Xeon 5500’s or Atom’s.

via SGI Unveils Octane™ III Personal Supercomputer.

Hardware sgi

Just wanted to remind all of you out there that if you  have any SGI Swag that you don’t see already included in our collection of SGI Swag, then send it in.  I’ve added a new page at the end for User Contributions where you’ll see all the new stuff collected. (…)

Hardware sgi, swag

In San Antonio, Texas from October 21 to 23, SGI will be holding its 7th Annual SGI User Group (SGIUG) Conference. (…)

Graphics, Hardware, Science conference, sgi

Over at “Brand New”, it’s SGI’s turn on the chopping block and they have a scathing review of the new SGI logo. (…)

Graphics logo, sgi

Just saw this on Twitter and it’s too good to keep to myself.  Could SGI be Soylent Green Industries?

Hardware humor, sgi

Just heard through a reliable grapevine a bit more news on the S?I culling of the Graphic Division.  VP of the Graphic Division, Robert Pette (who we interviewed previously) has been hired by NVidia.  No news yet on his new title, position, or responsibilities, just that he’s now proudly sporting an NVidia shirt.  Here’s his professional Bio, if you’re curious, and ironically it’s taken from the SGI Executive Team page.

Bob Pette is leading SGI’s Visualization Group, providing the vision, design, strategy and direction for all SGI’s visualization products and solutions, including the newly released VUE suite of software. The VUE suite of software provides innovative solutions that help high-performance organizations consolidate and maximize their compute and visualization resources to manage the rapidly growing digital universe, anytime, anyplace and on any device. In his 21-year career at SGI, Bob has held positions in Systems Engineering, Application and Solutions Development, Customer Benchmarking, Customer Services, Services/Sales Operations and Corporate Marketing. As vice president of SGI Global Services, Bob expanded the SGI’s visualization practice via the design, development and implementation of Reality Center environments, simulators, CAVE installations, and immersive auditoriums for industries ranging from aerospace design, defense and intelligence sectors to energy exploration. Bob received his B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech and his B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Tampa.

Here’s hoping that NVidia will start to take in some more of the VUE product team.  One other interesting side effect of this is that it could remedy a current limitation of the NVidia Drivers on SGI’s upcoming UltraViolet systems: a limit of 16GPU’s.  With more of the old SGI UV team in-house, maybe they’ll get that remedied.

Graphics, Hardware, Science feature, nvidia, sgi

John West at insideHPC has a scathing commentary on Mark Barrenechea’s latest blog post, which we covered last night, in which he says the big problem is not that they axed the graphics division, but that they are not being honest with their customers. (…)

Hardware sgi

I’ve been waiting for an official response from SGI about the recent elimination of their graphics division, and just got word that there won’t be one aside from the most recent blog post over at the SGI site.  Here’s a few choice quotes from it:
SGI’s mission focuses our engineering at the extremes of scale, speed, power, density, and latency. (…)

Hardware sgi

I found Jim Smyth, self-proclaimed collector of the SGI Swag Legacy.  He was kind enough to share images of his impressive collection of hats, mugs, t-shirts, and various other SGI-branded gadgets with me and I’ve uploaded them here for you to peruse. It’s a true testament covering 20 years of history from a company that pioneered the phrase “It’s not a Job, it’s a wardrobe”.

• Hats
• Mugs (1, 2, 3)
• T-Shirts (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
• Miscellaneous (1, 2)
• User Contributions

I’ve gone through and added an item of two from friends of mine, which you’ll see inside. If you have any SGI swag that you don’t see here, then send a pic into tips@vizworld.com and we’ll add them here. And if you have any of the legendary SGI Octane Lighters, then send us pics! And if you can, send us the lighter!

Read more…

Graphics, Hardware, Science feature, sgi, swag

Silicon Graphics, what a tangled web you wove.. From the old days of the Infinite Reality cards, you were the name in computer graphics.  Seems that legacy has come to an end.  I’m hearing from people within SGI that, as of Monday, the entire graphics division has been eliminated.  That includes everyone from the Vice President of the graphics division on down to the engineers.

It’s a sad day for the people within SGI, as they scramble to find employment within their competitors like NVidia and ATI.  It’s a sad day for fans of SGI, as the “G” has lost all meaning.  What does this mean for the future?  We don’t know yet.  As we find out more, we’ll share with you.

If any of you within SGI have news or information to share, let us know via any of the means on our About page.

Update: 12:15pm I’ve just received word that PowerVUE, SGI’s hardware accelerated & distributed rendering system for OpenGL, is now dead.. RemoteVUE and SoftVUE (remote-visualization and software-emulation extensions to PowerVUE) are likely dead as well, but not confirmed.  RIP PowerVUE (2008-2009). We hardly knew ye.

Update 8/19/09 : An official response from SGI..

Hardware feature, sgi

It’s been two weeks since we first broke the news of the deal between SGI and NSF for a 1-PetaFlop $30M computer going in at Pittsburg Supercomputing Center.  I’ve heard a few more things from reliable sources, and wanted to update the story. (…)

Hardware nsf, psc, sgi

Jim Clark, the Stanford University computer scientist who founded SGI, along with Netscape and several other web companies, talks to Silicon Valley’s MercuryNews about some of what he remembers about the early days of SGI and his endeavors. (…)

Hardware, Science interview, jim clark, netscape, opengl, sgi

This just came in from some SGI Reps in the Bay Area. (…)

Hardware conference, sgi

Still nothing official on the SGI & PSC falling-out we reported on last week.  From SGI’s PR firm gave us the following statement:
SGI remains committed to the HPC community and in fact still has a business relationship with the Pittsburg Supercomputing Center. This means that all of the business dealings are considered internal and confidential, and SGI cannot publicly comment on status of any deal at this time. (…)

Hardware psc, rumor, sgi

I just got an credible tip, confirmed by an SGI Sales rep, about a sour love triangle between the Old SGI, the New SGI, and the Pittsburg Supercomputing Center (PSC). (…)

Hardware business, nsf, psc, rackable, sgi

A hearing is scheduled today for 10AM to address concerns raised by Intel and Oracle, and new Monthly Operating reports have been published.

Hardware legal, rackable, sgi