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Monday, June 25, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
US Reclaimed World's Top Supercomputer with IBM BlueGene
Sequoia is also one of the most energy efficient systems on the list, which will be released Monday, June 18, at the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. This will mark the 39th edition of the list, which is compiled twice each year.
On the latest TOP500 list, Fujitsu’s “K Computer” installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan, is now the No. 2 system with 10.51 Pflop/s on the Linpack benchmark using 705,024 SPARC64 processing cores. The K Computer held the No. 1 spot on the previous two lists.
The new Mira supercomputer, an IBM BlueGene/Q system at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, debuted at No. 3, with 8.15 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark using 786,432 cores. The other U.S. system in the Top 10 is the upgraded Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which was the top U.S. system on the previous list and now clocks in at No. 6.
The newest list also marks a return of European systems in force. The most powerful system in Europe and No.4 on the List is SuperMUC, an IBM iDataplex system installed at Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Germany. Another German machine, the JuQUEEN BlueGene/Q at Forschungszentrum Juelich, is No. 8.
Italy makes its debut in the Top 10 with an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at CINECA. The system is at No. 7 on the list with 1.72 Pflop/s performance. In all, four of the top 10 supercomputers are IBM BlueGene/Q systems. France occupies the No. 9 spot with a homegrown Bull supercomputer.
China, which briefly took the No. 1 and No.3 spots in November 2010, has two systems in the Top 10, with Tianhe-1Aat the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin in No. 5 and Nebulae at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen No. 10.
Total performance of all the systems on the list has increased considerably since November 2011, reaching 123.4 Pflop/s. The combined performance of the last list was 74.2 Pflop/s. In all, 20 of the supercomputers on the newest list reached performance levels of 1 Pflop/s or more. The No. 500 machine on the list notched a performance level of 60.8 teraflop/s, which was enough to reach No. 332 just seven months ago.
A total of 372 systems (74.4 percent) are now using Intel processors, down from 384 systems (76.8 percent) on the last list. Intel is now followed by the AMD Opteron family with 63 systems (12.6 percent), same as in the in the previous list. The share of IBM Power processors has increased from 49 to 58 systems (11.6 percent).
58 systems use accelerators or co-processors (up from 39 six months ago), 53 of these use NVIDIA chips, two use Cell processors, two use ATI Radeon and there is one new system with Intel MIC technology.
IBM kept its lead in systems and has now 213 systems (42.6 percent) compared to HP with 138 systems (27.6 percent). HP is slightly down from 141 systems (28.2 percent) seven months ago, compared to IBM with 223 systems (44.6 percent). In the system category, Cray, Appro, SGI and Bull follow with 5.4 percent, 3.6 percent, 3.2 percent, and 3.2 percent respectively.
IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list in performance and considerably increased its share with 47.5 percent of installed total performance (up from 27.3 percent). HP is second with 10.2 percent down from 13.1 percent. Due to the impressive performance of the No. 1 K Computer, Fujitsu follows closely in the third spot with 9.9 percent, down from 14.7 percent. Cray follows in fourth place in this category with 8.9 percent, down from 14.3 percent.
The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 253 of the 500 systems (down from 263). The European share (107 systems – up from 103) is still lower than the Asian share (121 systems – up from 118). Dominant countries in Asia are China with 68 systems (down from 74), Japan with 34 systems (up from 30). In Europe, UK, France, and Germany, are almost equal with 25, 22, and 20 respectively.
Update:
- Original post: 2012.06.18
Perspective: Cloud Attributes for HPC
Gartner published the five attributes of cloud computing in 2009 and it remained a constant reminder of what Cloud truly is as we technologists start to introduce Cloud into HPC and analytics.
Service-Based: Consumer concerns are abstracted
from provider concerns through service interfaces that are well-defined.
The interfaces hide the implementation details and enable a completely
automated response by the provider of the service to the consumer of the
service. The service could be considered "ready to use" or "off the
shelf" because the service is designed to serve the specific needs of a
set of consumers, and the technologies are tailored to that need rather
than the service being tailored to how the technology works.
{Frank: this translates into having a service catalog that users can easily search, browse and request for cloud services such as analytics or HPC).
Scalable and Elastic: The service can scale
capacity up or down as the consumer demands at the speed of full
automation (which may be seconds for some services and hours for
others). Elasticity is a trait of shared pools of resources. Scalability
is a feature of the underlying infrastructure and software platforms.
Elasticity is associated with not only scale but also an economic model
that enables scaling in both directions in an automated fashion. This
means that services scale on demand to add or remove resources as
needed.
{Frank: this remains the biggest challenge for HPC Cloud as resource are not yet optimized based on virtualization and high-performance network such as Infiniband}
Shared: Services share a pool of resources to
build economies of scale. IT resources are used with maximum efficiency.
The underlying infrastructure, software or platforms are shared among
the consumers of the service (usually unknown to the consumers). This
enables unused resources to serve multiple needs for multiple consumers,
all working at the same time.
{Frank: resource sharing hasn't been an issue as HPC infrastructure has traditionally been designed as a centralized and shared resource. Case in point: Grid computing}
Metered by Use: Services are tracked with usage
metrics to enable multiple payment models. The service provider has a
usage accounting model for measuring the use of the services, which
could then be used to create different pricing plans and models. These
may include pay-as-you go plans, subscriptions, fixed plans and even
free plans.
{Frank: now you are not owning but leasing - so welcome to the new world of pay-as-you-go}
Uses Internet Technologies: The service is
delivered using Internet identifiers, formats and protocols, such as
URLs, HTTP, IP and representational state transfer Web-oriented
architecture.
{Frank: this is obvious. I wouldn't call this out as an attribute but will take it nevertheless}
Link:
Update:
- 2012.06.18: original post
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Big Data Event at Big Apple
Unprecedented streams of digital information generated by today's customers hold great promise for marketers, but nearly half of them feel unprepared to handle the complexity of digital marketing. To capture this opportunity, IBM is helping CMOs and CIOs around the world forge a shared agenda to drive marketing innovation, blending the art of marketing with the science of technology.
IBM's Viewpoint
CMOs are embracing Big Data and analytics to engage with customers as individuals instead of just targeting broad demographic categories. Their goal is to make marketing a welcome, customized service. http://huff.to/MzyOnP
The promise of a brand's value is being tested and measured in public at every customer interaction -- from instant customer feedback on social media to viral videos. This transparency is driving CMOs to align their company values and beliefs so they're in sync with their brands.
In the era of data-driven marketing and digitally empowered customers, the CMO & CIO can no longer perform on separate stages. Just as IBM helped invent the CIO discipline in the 1950s, today we're providing the tools and expertise to help data-driven CMOs deliver business results and meaningful ROI.
What They're Saying
An IBM op-ad published in The Wall Street Journal ushers in the "Era of the Chief Executive Customer." http://ibm.co/MdGolN
Forbes reports on IBM's CMO Study and the role marketing analytics plays in strategic decisions. http://onforb.es/MsSZmc
Marketing Daily describes how attracting new customers may be one Tweet or Facebook comment away. http://bit.ly/JCmFqQ
Update:
2012.06.06 - original post
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