Re:Linux dominates supercomputers as never before
by exDM69 on Wednesday June 25, 2014 @06:29AM
(#7943109)
> Another way to put it is that specialized supercomputers no longer exist, and the top500 is now populated with super-branded racks of PCs running Linux with souped up network cards.
While there's a grain of truth in this, in reality, a supercomputer still looks like a room full of refrigerators and not at all like a typical computer or even a server farm.
Some of the computer hardware in there is just commodity hardware but for example the interconnects can't really be described as "souped up network cards", they're in a category of their own.
Yes, the era of the Cray boxes is gone but a supercomputer is still a supercomputer.
While there's a grain of truth in this, in reality, a supercomputer still looks like a room full of refrigerators and not at all like a typical computer or even a server farm.
Some of the computer hardware in there is just commodity hardware but for example the interconnects can't really be described as "souped up network cards", they're in a category of their own.
Yes, the era of the Cray boxes is gone but a supercomputer is still a supercomputer.