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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I hope I'm not too late to this party
to add my 2 cents! <br>
<br>
While I don't dispute the legal definition of COTS as stand for
"commercial off the-shelf", I think most people, especially in the
Linux cluster community are more familiar with COTS meaning
"COMMODITY off-the-shelf." <br>
<br>
That is a subtle but important distinction, and it's that
distinction that lead to the growth of Linux clusters. Googling
for the definition of commodity, there are several definitions.
Using the definition I am most familiar with, "commodity" means
standardized goods that are essentially interchangeable, available
from multiple vendors, and sell at relatively low margins dues to
cheap production through economies of scale. Brand is usually
irrelevant. Using 'define:commodity' in google (Thanks for the
tip, Ellis!) , this definition comes up:<br>
<br>
"<span>a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be
bought and sold, such as copper or coffee." <br>
<br>
Many manufactured goods fit this description too: steel,
gasoline, tulips, cotton fabric, nails, lumber, memory chips,
etc. With respect to computers, the x86 Wintel desktop computers
were often considered commodity items since the components were
standardized and you could (within reason) swap components
between Dell, HP, Gateway (remember them?), and 'brand-x"
computers with (almost) no issues. This commoditization lead to
the sub-$1,000 computer in the 90s, and eventually the sub-$500
computer (anyone remember e-Machines?). <br>
<br>
It is from these cheap "COTS" (where C=commodity) systems that
the first Linux clusters were born and provided a tremendous
cost savings over other "COTS" (where C = Commercial)
supercomputers. For examples of the latter, there were plenty of
systems by Cray, SGI, Sun and others that were "commercial", but
definitely not "commodity" systems. Most of these systems no
longer exist thanks to Linux cluster built from 'commodity' x86
hardware. <br>
<br>
So you see, while the US govt. might define the C in COTS as
"commercial", it was when that C stood for "commodity" that
Linux clusters were able to take off. <br>
</span>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Prentice Bisbal
Manager of Information Technology
Rutgers Discovery Informatics Institute (RDI2)
Rutgers University
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rdi2.rutgers.edu">http://rdi2.rutgers.edu</a>
</pre>
On 11/19/2013 09:26 AM, Bob Drzyzgula wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAABUKW_p-f-3cnOTtA6VEu0eMa0oGjZHa9exKS4x9Z8+4ptSeA@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Well, it is certainly the case that very little
high-end product is sitting around on shelves. As someone who
has placed his share of orders with five to seven figure bottom
lines, I can attest to the fact that it is perfectly typical to
have to wait for your place in the production queue to come up
before you ever see your stuff. However, that actually isn't the
point of COTS, at least as it is defined in the FAR. Rather, the
point is that the product was engineered by the manufacturer on
their own initiative, with the intent of selling it to the
general public. It doesn't even matter if, for example, the
product is Configure-to-Order, assembled out of COTS parts as
specified by customer, it is still COTS, because that ordering
and configuration process is set up for sales to the general
public, on the manufacturer's initiative.
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>Something is *not* COTS if the customer tells the
manufacturer what to build, and how to build it, to meet a
unique need of the customer, and the manufacturer then has no
expectation that there would be any market for it beyond that
one customer, or possibly even that they will be granted no
rights to sell it to the general public. This process is where
those mil-spec hammers and toilet seats came from, and why
they were so expensive. The process is far from dead, however
-- you can be certain that the military is still ordering
stuff -- radios for example -- that are built to unique and
even classified specifications. It's just that, under a lot of
scrutiny, the government eventually came to its senses and
figured out that maybe the hammers that Eastwing sells at the
corner hardware store will work just fine, or at least that
the procedures that require the use of a hammer can adjusted,
at minimal cost, such that those will work. Then again, from
another perspective it is perhaps the case that this only
became possible when the quality control standards used in
commercial manufacturing processes finally rose to a level
that one actually *could* depend on a COTS product when the
life of a soldier or astronaut depended on it.
<div>
<br>
</div>
<div>But from this perspective, very little computing
equipment in use today is anything but COTS. Perhaps some of
the giant web services companies are specifying custom
computing devices, but I'd guess that the volumes involved
there are high enough that distinction becomes meaningless.
It is almost as if the Beowulf community taught the industry
and the market something that they more or less learned.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Perhaps the bigger remaining distinction, from an HPC
perspective, is between devices built around merchant
silicon vs custom or captive designs. While there is still a
market for devices built around Power and SPARC processors
they are certainly not the focus of HPC cluster computing (I
note that less than 10% of the current Top 500 use anything
but Intel or AMD CPUs; Power/PowerPC accounts for most of
those). Network equipment has remained something of a
bastion for products built around custom ASICs, but even
that is starting to crumble as designs built around the
latest merchant chips such as the Broadcom Trident II,
together with protocols such as SPB & TRILL, become
competitive with big-iron chassis switch configurations.</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>When I think about the "SOHO" designation, though, I am
thinking more in terms of the commoditization of trailing-edge
technology. Take a meander down to MicroCenter and you'll find
that "SOHO" network switches are still being sold in high
volumes with 100 Mbps ports; only the premium models have
gigabit ports. As a practical matter, a 100 Mbps switch is
perfectly suited to the task of connecting the half dozen
workstations of an insurance agent's office to a couple of
printers and a 25 megabit Comcast Internet link. This is the
kind of application that those magazine writers were thinking
of when they coined the term, and it is only incidental that
some of that equipment will occasionally be useful to
on-a-shoestring level HPC.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--Bob</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:49 PM, Mark
Hahn <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:hahn@mcmaster.ca" target="_blank">hahn@mcmaster.ca</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><br>
interesting stuff about GSA lists.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> A Netgear 16-port gigabit switch that sells for $200
is both SOHO and COTS.<br>
> A Cisco Nexus 7718 18-slot chassis switch is still
COTS but in no way,<br>
> shape, manner or form SOHO.<br>
<br>
</div>
I like to treat COTS as more than merely "not bespoke",<br>
but really pret a porter, and the Target end of it too ;)<br>
<br>
that is, I suspect that there are not a bunch of $30k cisco
switches<br>
on the shelf of the big distributors, and especially not in
any<br>
local resellers or retail outlets. the point is really that
a COTS<br>
device is produced in large volume, with low margins.<br>
also, to some degree with conforming to public standards<br>
and being available from multiple vendors.<br>
<br>
for me, beowulf is all about doing supercomputer work with
COTS hardware.<br>
<br>
regards, mark hahn.<br>
<div class="HOEnZb">
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</blockquote>
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<br>
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