Re: What is a Super Computer?

All those cores (each running a linux kernel) are communicating to their 'neighbors' in 6 directions (in 3D) and simultaneously working on a piece of the same problem. There is no traditional console with Blue Gene, no USB port, no keyboard and no mouse. It also doesn't have disk storage! All the programs are sent in over the network and results come out the same way. The compute nodes are all linked very tightly into a 'lattice' if you will.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

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On 2/28/2013 3:26 PM, Nathan Andelin wrote:

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Colin Parris, Power Systems GM points out that the world's largest, fastest super computer runs Power nodes. Information Week states:

"The IBM Sequoia supercomputer, installed at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, runs 16.32 petaflops, using 1.6 million compute cores in 96 racks, each roughly the size of a large refrigerator, Parris said."


Okay, 1.6 million cores; that seems almost unbelievable. What makes it "one" computer? A single console? Something dispatching work to all compute nodes?

-Nathan