[Beowulf] Open source and the Draft Report of the Task Force on High Performance Computing

Dmitri Chubarov dmitri.chubarov at gmail.com
Thu Aug 28 05:46:16 PDT 2014


Hi, Gavin,

It seems to be an inevitable conclusion that in the view of the authors of
the Report Beowulf is not HPC.

All the best


On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Gavin W. Burris <bug at wharton.upenn.edu>
wrote:

> Hi, Bill.
>
> This is perplexing...
>
> So, the Linux kernel and supporting tools that make the operating system
> aren't
> being factored in here?  The compiler?  The libraries?  If "very little
> open
> source" has "made its way into broad use within HPC," what OS are the
> majority
> running if not Linux?  This seem to be greatly uninformed, or pushing an
> agenda.  The only way I can see this excerpt as even remotely true would
> be if
> you applied a very narrow survey to a specific application set.  But that
> narrow view does not apply to a full operational stack or all of HPC in
> general!  I'm baffled, because this does not jive with my lay of the land.
>
> Cheers.
>
> On 07:29PM Wed 08/27/14 -0700, Bill Broadley wrote:
> >
> > The URL:
> >
> http://energy.gov/seab/downloads/draft-report-task-force-high-performance-computing
> >
> > One piece I found particularly interesting:
> >
> >   There has been very little open source that has made its way into
> broad use
> >   within the HPC commercial community where great emphasis is placed on
> >   serviceability and security. There is a better track record in data
> analytics
> >   recently with map/reduce as a notable example. This is less of an
> issue for
> >   universities or national laboratories but they represent no more than
> about
> >   10%-15% of all HPC usage. Of course, one cannot “force” the adoption
> of open
> >   source but one should also not plan on it being a panacea to any
> ecosystem
> >   shortcoming. A focus investment effort within universities could
> expand the
> >   volume of open source and increase the chances that some of the
> software
> >   output could become commercialized. It should be noted that the most
> >   significant consumption of open source software is China and it is
> also the
> >   case that the Chinese are rare contributors to open source as well.
> >   Investments in open source or other policy actions to stimulate
> creation are
> >   likely to produce a disproportionate benefit accruing to the Chinese.
> >
> >
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> --
> Gavin W. Burris
> Senior Project Leader for Research Computing
> The Wharton School
> University of Pennsylvania
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