Austin Modine: Sun Microsystems’ new supercomputer and switch
Austin Modine writes about Sun Microsystems’ new supercomputer and switch. It’s a screamer.
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Sun has teamed with the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) in Austin to build the first “Constellation” system.
The box dubbed “Ranger” is a Linux cluster with a peak performance in excess of 420 trillion floating point operations per second. The system is packed with 1.7PB of disk storage, and when finalized, will have 105TB of memory. The setup will take about 3 megawatts of power to run.
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The key to Constellation’s might comes from a Bectolsheim-designed mega switch.
The switch, code-named “Magnum” (yes, Magnum*) promises to top industry scales. It’s a massive, 3,456 port InfiniBand system with a total bandwidth of 110Tb/s. Each switch can hold 1152 cables, at 12 connections per cable.