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Supercomputers: Getting it Right and Wrong
- Published on Wednesday, 28 March 2012 11:15
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 4033
Much has changed in the supercomputing arena. Even you can get in the game!
Recently, Sebastian Anthony wrote an article for ExtremeTech entitled What Can You Do With A Supercomputer? His conclusion was "not much" and for many people he is largely correct. However, there is deeper understanding that may change the answer to "plenty."
He was mostly right when talking about the worlds largest supercomputers. Indeed, one very workable past definition of a supercomputer was "any computer that had at least a six digit price tag." In the past, that was largely true and created a rather daunting barrier to entry for those who needed to crunch numbers. The cost was due to an architectural wall between supercomputers and the rest of computing. These systems were designed to perform math very quickly using vector processors. It all worked rather well until the cost of fabrication made creating your own vector CPU prohibitively expensive.
A Smidgen of Quantum Computing
- Published on Monday, 05 March 2012 11:22
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 6956
Does a real instant password cracking quantum computer exist, or are we just at the beginning of the next revolution in computing?
(Note: The first half of this article was published last year at Linux-mag.com, however the second half was never published. Both parts have been updated and are presented below.)
Recent news by IBM describes very good progress toward the creation of real quantum computer. The work helped solve the stability problem associated with many quantum computer designs. There have been other quantum computer announcements over the last year. In May of 2011 a press release by DWave Systems proclaimed D-Wave Systems sells its first Quantum Computing System to Lockheed Martin Corporation. The press release created a bit of a stir in the quantum computing world and as with any new technology there is often some confusing (some deliberate) around actual milestones and press releases.
All Your BASH Are Belong To Us
- Published on Wednesday, 10 August 2011 19:31
- Written by Douglas Eadline
- Hits: 9858
From the "secret sauce that tastes bad" department
Many Linux/Unix programmers are not aware that a battle over Bash scripts is currently raging in a Kansas courtroom. A Linux cluster vendor, Atipa Technologies is claiming all the Bash scripts they shipped to customers contain trade secrets and were stolen by former employees. Should this issue be decided in Atipa's favor, the fundamental idea of shared and open software could be blanketed by the simple claim of trade secrets.
Why Models Beat Scripting
- Published on Friday, 30 April 2010 12:42
- Written by Erik Troan
- Hits: 3182
Editors Note: This article is part two in a two-part series, published under Creative Commons License. For those that may not know, Erik Troan is one of the original authors of RPM (Red Hat Package Manager). As Erik describes, it seems the declarative approach may extend beyond programming languages and into better system management.
I've made a couple of posts recently about Why Scripting is Evil. It has generated some conversation about what a script is and what the alternatives are. One commentator must have anticipated this follow-up post when he said:
"So, somewhere in the process, a script is a necessary object, whether it is explicit (written by the user) or inherent (created through abstraction and based on the user's description of desired outcome)".
In short, the only way to do away with scripting is to create an application that abstracts the scripting process. Automated scripting would then be based on user descriptions of the desired outcome/goal rather than having the user describe the steps to reach said goal.
Why Scripting is Evil
- Published on Friday, 16 April 2010 04:20
- Written by Erik Troan
- Hits: 3857
Editors Note: This article is part one in a two-part series, published under Creative Commons License. For those that may not know, Erik Troan is one of the original authors of RPM (Red Hat Package Manager). As every HPC administrator knows writing scripts is part of the job. Erik offers some insights as to why this can lead to unexpected problems.
There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.
Okay, an old joke, but I'm clearly the first kind of person. I try and split everything into two buckets. System automation solutions lend themselves to this two-sizes-fits-all mantra, with the approaches splitting between scripting solutions and model-based approaches.
