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Orion Puts a Cluster on Your Desktop November 17, 2004 A Tower PC That Runs at 134.4GHz? The Orion DT-12 Desktop Cluster Workstation uses a dozen nodes or processors that deliver peak processing performance of 30 gigaflops (15 Gflops sustained). Each processor is paired with a DIMM socket holding 512MB to 2GB of DDR memory, yielding a 24GB maximum. The 24 by 18 by 4-inch chassis also has room for 12 2.5-inch hard drives, ranging from 20GB to 80GB, plus a 3.5-inch "head node drive," offering up to one terabyte of internal storage. In short, the workstation crams the performance of a modest supercomputer into a 28-pound box. With 96 nodes, Orion's DS-96 deskside model is naturally bulkier -- 17 by 27 by 25 inches, mounted on casters to wheel its 150-pound weight around -- but still fits into an office or laboratory environment. It offers a similar setup of nodes linked by a hardwired Gigabit Ethernet network fabric, albeit multiplied by eight: 96 processors for 300 Gflops of peak processing performance (150 Gflops sustained); 96 DIMM sockets for up to 192GB of DDR memory; 96 hard disks for up to 9.6 terabytes of storage. Orion says the DT-96 will ship in the first quarter of 2005. How can the company fit 96 processors in a single box and keep it from overheating? Hunter says the real trick is delivering gigaflops of processing power within a 250-watt thermal envelope, and the answer is Transmeta's 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz Efficeon CPUs. Best known for their use in ultralight notebooks, the Efficeon processors require little power and subsequently generate little heat, making them ideal for close-quartered clustering. The DT-12 system draws just 220 watts of power and the DS-96 can operate with only 1,500 watts -- no more than some handheld hair dryers. The Value Proposition Orion also hopes to make a splash with pricing for its systems. "At a price point of under $10,000 for the 12-node and $100,000 for the 96-node system, an Orion Cluster Workstation is within reach of many IT departments," according to Quandt's report. The company's Web site currently offers a starter configuration of the DT-12 with 12 processors, 6GB of memory, and a single 160GB head node drive for $9,990, with a loaded computational platform -- with 12GB of memory and 960GB of internal storage -- for $16,590. Prices for the DS-96 start at $93,000 for a tower with 96 CPUs, 96GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Orion's software stack includes Fedora Core 2, an open-source spinoff of Red Hat's operating system based on version 2.6 of the Linux kernel, and the scalable, open-source PVFS2 Parallel Virtual File System. Users can run any existing Linux cluster software on an Orion workstation without modification. The company also has a partnership with Wolfram Research for a technical computing platform bundled with gridMathematica, a 64-bit variant of Wolfram's popular Mathematica 5 optimized for multiprocessor clusters and computing grids. It delivers a quick way to set up and run vast calculations by combining a high-level programming language with a collection of high-speed mathematical algorithms and numerical libraries plus easy-to-use parallel programming constructs. Another DT-12 bundle preinstalls the BioTeam iNquiry suite of applications for bioinformatics. Hunter says there have been no problems so far running any applications written for less-well-integrated clusters: "Back-room clusters are really just a bunch of x86 computers connected by Ethernet. What we are offering is just a bunch of x86 computers connected by Ethernet." The difference, of course, is that Orion puts clustering power right on a scientific or technical specialist's desktop, making a 180-degree turn from the recent trend to define a workstation as something not so different from a high-end civilian PC with a deluxe graphics card -- aiming toward what Hunter humbly calls "the rebirth of the workstation." Go to page: 1  2