HPC bar goes lower and wider
235057
Parallel computing pitches at the mainstream The more things stay the same, the more things are likely to change, and clear evidence of that could be seen today at the announcement of the latest Top500 Supercomputers league tables at the International Supercomputer Conference in Dresden.â¦
743723
ATLANTA -- Low-end server technology is racing ahead of the ability of many data centers to keep the increasingly dense and fast systems cool, a problem that's stopping some IT managers from using the new machines.
99191
Windows can load quicker when you disable programs you don't need at start-up. Plus, stop Msconfig from opening automatically when Windows starts.
745039
Release makes tweaks in performance and stability, but there's still another beta to come before launch of server OS.
86432
Each skinny server houses eight processors. Plug a few together, and voila! A high-performance machine.
601930
Advanced Micro Devices managed to reduce the maximum thermal output of its newly released 90 nanometer Opteron server processors by 25 percent compared to the previous generation, the company said Wednesday.
153682
And cripples other traffic Tiscali has been forced to reverse a software installation on its bandwidth-throttling hardware, after it triggered complaints from customers who saw iTunes blocked during peak hours and other traffic slowed to a crawl.â¦
685771
(InfoWorld) - The forecast for datacenters isn't good for the short term: they're going to get hotter and a lot more cramped, according to Gartner analysts. Increasing use of cheaper x86 chip-based servers has presented problems for datacenters, most of which haven't been redesigned since the last tech boom went bust six years ago, said Rakesh Kumar, a Gartner research vice president. He spoke Monday during a presentation at Gartner's Data Center Technology Summit in London. The number of server racks is increasing. Consequently, the amount of floor space in datacenters is decreasing, but their power and cooling requirements are rising. More attention is being focused on theÂ environmental impacts of running high-energy datacentersÂ and moves by governments toward new legislation. "It will come down to a balance between the power, the cooling and the floor space," Kumar said. "What that means is legacy datacenters are obsolete." Gartner predicts that within 12 to 18 months organizations will have to make major changes to accommodate the heating and cooling challenges that come with more processing power. Four years ago, a stand-alone server in a rack used 2 kilowatts of electricity. Today, a standard rack filled with between 50 percent to 80 percent of blade servers consume between 15 kilowatts and 30 kilowatts per rack, Kumar said. The cooling statistics complicate the power picture. It takes between 1.2 to 1.3 times the amount of energy a server consumes to cool it, Kumar said. IT managers frequently can't fill an entire rack because of the heat generated by the servers. Floor cooling, where cool air is circulated under server racks, and air conditioning -- aren't going to work anymore because the heat is too great, Kumar said. What's more, the cool space beneath the servers in legacy datacenters becomes clogged with cables and wires and occasionally, other odd things that interfere. "They're thinking 'Hey, there's space under here. I'll keep my beer in there,'" said Peter Hannaford, of American Power Conversion, which makes server cooling equipment. "We found this guy who had a Christmas tree under there." All of these obstacles contribute to higher energy costs. Gartner estimates that electricity costs could go from 10 percent or less of IT budgets to 20 percent to 30 percent if left unchecked, Kumar said. Electricity costs have risen over the last year and will likely continue to rise, although the peak is unknown. Fortunately, everyone from chip vendors to servers vendors and software makers have a stake in reducing energy and heat, Kumar said. The problem could ultimately limit the growth of IT. A huge amount of investment is being made in finding solutions, either through new products or through new datacenter designs. Governments also are paying increased attention to IT. It's possible high-energy users could see higher taxes, or that ill-fitting legislation could be implemented, spurred by public demand for greener IT, said Steve Prentice, vice president and chief of research for Gartner. "They [the government] will rush something in that apparently does the job but does not address all the issues," Prentice said. "We think it's better to self-regulate."
438529
Thinks PCs are a fatty, fatty 2x4 When is a thin client computer too thin?â¦
475201
Latest PEAR Releases:Structures_Graph 1.0.3Console_ProgressBar 0.5.0betapearweb 1.2.0RC1Text_Wiki_Creole 0.4.1Text_Wiki_Creole 0.4.0Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_MDB2 0.1.7Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBQuery 0.1.7Text_Wiki_Creole 0.4.2pearweb 1.2.1pearweb 1.2.0Auth 1.5.0RC2HTML_Progress2 2.3.0a3XML_XUL 0.8.3pearweb 1.2.2pearweb 1.2.3XML_Query2XML 1.1.0Text_CAPTCHA_Numeral 1.1.0Text_Figlet 1.0.0Log 1.9.10
512535
EXTENDING the boundaries of workstation computing, HP has introduced a low-cost workstation that brings unprecedented performance to the entrylevel market.
90155
Based off of a previous article from Mike Willbanks, Stuart Herbert has posted some of his own thoughts on tuning and tweaking your applications for the best performance you can get out of them.   There's some good advice in there, and I thought it'd be a good idea to quickly add a bit more detail about the separate approaches that Mike raises.   He goes over the APC caching, memcache, the "gzip trick", the "Not Modified" header and optimized SQL statements.   He also mentions one thing that Mike didn't mention - a split between static files (no PHP needed) and their dynamic cousins. Having a more pure Apache (no PHP installed) can help give a minute jump in speed that, depending on the size of the site, could really add up from a user's perspective.
494433
Latest PEAR Releases:PHP_FunctionCallTracer 1.0.0RC1XML_Query2XML 1.4.0Validate_LV 1.0.0Validate_LV 1.0.0RC2PEAR 1.6.2
94424
Early reviews indicate Advanced Micro Devices' new Quad FX can't keep pace with Core 2 Extreme. In Epicenter.
735157
Open HPI is an open source implementation of the SA Forum's Hardware Platform Interface (HPI). HPI provides an abstracted interface to managing computer hardware, typically for chassis and rack based servers.   http://openhpi.org
6104
Microsoft Corp. will support only x86 processors with 64-bit extensions when it releases a special version of Windows Server for high performance computing (HPC) next year, leaving support for Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 for a later, undefined date.
535519
Hewlett-Packard has announced four entry-level servers for SMBs, along with updates to its remote management software.The servers are part of HP&#39;s ProLiant 100 series, aimed at companies with 100 to 500 employees. They are all two-processor rack-mount servers, with two 1U machines and two 2U machines. (The 1U refers to the height of the machine and is equal to 1.75 inches.)Rack-mount servers have lost the limelight lately to trendy blade servers, sales of which are growing at a faster clip, and even HP&#39;s vice president of marketing, Paul Gottsegen, who was charged with promoting the new rack-mount servers, advised customers to look closely at blades.&quot;When they see the blades, customers tell us there&#39;s an advantage in cooling, in cabling, in reduced power consumption and overall density, so the rack customers typically transition to blades, it&#39;s just a matter of customers in this market becoming aware of them,&quot; he said.Still, rack-mount servers account for a high proportion of sales despite their slower growth, and smaller companies tend to be more comfortable sticking with what they are used to, said Gordon Haff, principal IT adviser at Illuminata.Two of the HP servers are available now. One is the DL185 G5, a 2U system designed for high-capacity jobs like mail serving and video capture. It comes with up to 14 large-form factor drives and 10.5TB of storage, and it runs on one or two Opteron 2200 processors from AMD. Pricing starts at $1,749.The other machine on sale now is the DL160 G5, a 1U server that can act as a node in a high-performance computing cluster as well as a standard business server. It has two PCI-Express x16 2.0 slots and support for a faster front-side bus, and it runs one or two of Intel&#39;s quad-core 5400 &quot;Harpertown&quot; chips. Pricing starts at $1,399.The other two machines won&#39;t ship for another three months, HP said. They are the DL180, a general-purpose 2U server with three PCI-E slots and up to 12 large form factor drives, and the DL 165, which will be the first rack-mount server that can hold four 3.5-inch disk drives, according to HP. Pricing for those servers was not announced.HP has been doing well in the server market lately. In the third quarter last year, it sold more machines than second-place Dell or third-place IBM, although IBM earned the most revenue, research company Gartner said.Low-end servers are fairly commoditized, and there isn&#39;t a great deal that distinguishes one vendor&#39;s hardware from another, Haff said. &quot;Certainly, there are some differences in areas like management software, but for the most part, it&#39;s about the channels and the partners and what&#39;s offered around the server,&quot; he said.HP announced two Lights-Out management packages for the servers. They allow users to install software remotely and monitor the health of fans, power supplies and other components. A Lights-Out 100i Advanced Pack is $199 per license and a Select Pack is $99. Customers must also buy a Remote Management Card for $219.HP also announced two updated software packages for the machines. They are Citrix Access Essentials, for remote access to applications, and Exchange Server 2007, the latest version of Microsoft&#39;s e-mail server software.