Cray Blog

Subscribe

• Where Do You Want To Go Today?

  5/2/2009 8:30:00 PM

  The interesting thing about the HPC market is how fluid it is  - with new technologies continually looking for new markets and delivering new ways for scientists and engineers to get their work done faster and cheaper. The challenge is evaluating these technologies and identifying the winners from the “nice to have’s” in a cost effective way.

  I see the Cray CX1 as a great vehicle to do test and development work on many of these technologies. So, the question is “where do you want to go today?” in technology terms.

  In this blog, I will very briefly touch on a few of those places you can go. These are Intel Nehalem processors, Nvidia GPGPU’s, vSMP from ScaleMP, Windows HPC Server 2008, and an ability to leverage both Windows and Linux in a dual-boot set up.

  Intel’s Xeon 5500 (aka Nehalem) is a no brainer - offering things like DDR3 memory, turbo mode and excellent clock speeds. Or check out the performance of accelerators from Nvidia with the Quadro visualization boards, the built-in Tesla processors (offering roughly 1TF of single precision performance per board) on a CX1 blade, or the Tesla S1070 rack mountable system. And the VSMP allows you to manage a CX1 as a single system (as opposed to 8 blades per chassis in a cluster) with one OS through virtualized SMP.

  Windows HPC Server 2008 is fast growing in popularity and is a key aspect to the CX1 offering. The ability to integrate HPC computing into the single login environment of active directory as well as to allow high end workstation users to upgrade easily are just a few of the benefits of this powerful platform. Our friends at Cluster Resource Inc. have also leveraged their Moab scheduler in such a way that you can run jobs in Windows and/or Linux, booting in and out of either operating system and even kicking off virtual machines on either platform.

  So any or all of these things can be done today on the Cray CX1, either individually or in most cases together! Not bad for a system starting at around $25k. As always, if you want to learn more, please drop an email to cx1info@cray.com.

  Full story

  Comments (0)

• How Easy is it to Set up a Cray CX1?

  1/28/2009 2:55:47 PM

  Sometimes pictures can tell the story so much better than words, check out this video on Youtube: How to Build a Cray CX1 Supercomputer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL3dNpwvYj4

  Full story

  Comments (2)

• CRAY CX1, Where can I see one?

  10/29/2008 4:25:55 PM

  It's been a little over a month since the CX1 was introduced and the response has been great! Many people have been excited to see the CX1 for the first time as it was exhibited at HPC on Wall Street at the beginning of October as well as at the Microsoft HPC Server 2008 launch event.

  The CX1 team has a busy schedule in the month of November as they're attending the upcoming SEG (Society for Exploration Geophysicists) show in Las Vegas from Sunday 11/9 - Wednesday 11/12 as well as the biggest HPC event of the year, SC'08 in Austin, TX from Monday 11/17 - Thursday 11/20. Hopefully we'll catch up with you at one of these shows!

  The Cray website is being updated as more events come on-line. Keep checking back with us: http://www.cray.com

  Full story

  Comments (1)

• CRAY CX1 - Fast, efficient and whisper quiet

  9/30/2008 11:28:11 AM

  If your datacenter is currently tapped out in either available power or cooling (as many of them are), a CX1 in an office will help to distribute the power and cooling load away from the datacenter. The CX1 is designed to be utilized in an office environment and can be easily connected to your network for easy access by users.

  Also worth noting if 10G Ethernet is important to you is that the CX1 does offer that option.

  What many people have been very surprised about and have commented on is just how quiet the CX1 truly is when they have seen it in person. You'll hardly even know there's a supercomputer in your office as the CX1's active noise cancellation will have the CX1 registering a mere 45db.

  Full story

  Comments (0)

• CX1 - Generating Interest from Long-time Admirers

  9/25/2008 11:00:42 AM

   

  Following our recent launch, we’ve heard from many people who have been waiting for the day that they could get their hands on a Cray System. From Craig F: “A few of us have dreamed about having access to a Cray since 1976. We studied Seymour's ideas in school, about how his computers were so fast, they were tuned by changing the lengths of the wires. We programmed his CDC Cyber's (in assembler, no less), marvelling at the flexibility of his 60-bit word design, and otherwise generally held him in hero status.

  With your introduction of the CX1, perhaps now our boyhood (and girlhood) dreams can be realized.

  I do have one request, however, which would make that dream truly complete. Is there any way you would consider adding an option as shown [attached]?”CX1_fun.pdf

  Full story

  Comments (0)

• Deskside HPC Becomes Reality!

  9/16/2008 12:00:00 AM

  Everyone knows Cray as "The Supercomputing Company," which makes today's announcement of the CX1, an affordable high-performance computing system designed for the office environment, a remarkable milestone in democratizing HPC for the end user. The CX1 is designed as an easy to deploy and easy to operate high-performance system and is the perfect complement to the new Microsoft HPC 2008 Server operating system.

  The CX1 is a horizontal fit for all HPC users including application developers, IT professionals and especially end users. For application developers the CX1 can provide a faster testing response and reduce overall time to market. IT professionals with space or network support constraints can now install a fully functioning Windows cluster anywhere on the network as easily as adding a workstation. End users will see tremendous benefits from the ease of use, Windows accessibility and especially the immediate cluster access and response time.

  The need for supercomputing and HPC has grown stronger and faster over the past few years to a level that is, in most cases, unattainable by the typical user or departmental group. The CX1 is designed to provide "ease of everything" computing with an integrated HPC operating environment in either Windows HPC Server 2008 or Linux Redhat. As an affordable system, purchasing the CX1 is simple from configuration to setup and installation.

  Because the CX1 is purpose built for offices, laboratories and other non-traditional HPC environments, it requires no dedicated computer room, special power or cooling requirements. The CX1 runs on power from a standard wall socket (20amp/110/220v). This ability enables even the end user to have supercomputing power in their departmental environment. To keep the system within comfortable noise levels there is an active noise cancellation system running. The CX1 can simply be plugged in, set up and connected to the network, running just like a typical office computer.

  For more information on the CX1 and its use of industry standard hardware and software from leading providers such as Intel and Microsoft, check out today's press release.

  Full story

  Comments (3)