Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Computing Power to the People

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:54:14 -0400

Computing Power to the People
By Daniel Terdiman

Story location:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62937,00.html

02:00 AM Apr. 05, 2004 PT

A team of computer scientists linked hundreds of individual PCs into a 
temporary supercomputer on Saturday. It take the potential of 
supercomputing out of the labs and puts it in the hands of independent 
researchers.

But while the organizers of the FlashMob Computing project succeeded in
one 
respect -- building the world's first ad hoc supercomputer out of a gym 
full of loaner Wintel machines -- they failed to crack the world's top
500 
list of largest supercomputers.

"The bottom line is, the (computing) rates that we got were pretty
darned 
impressive, and we're pretty happy with what we got in the time we had," 
said Greg Benson, an assistant professor of computer science at the 
University of San Francisco and one of the primary organizers of the 
FlashMob event. "Everybody involved was just really happy in the end."

Saturday's event, at USF's Koret Gym, was a geek super-fantasy come to 
life. All morning, PC owners streamed into the building, dropping off
their 
machines, which were then plugged into a matrix of hundreds of others.

In the end, the room resembled a government auction, or perhaps a 
gargantuan Homebrew Computer Club meeting: 700 PCs of all different
makes, 
models, shapes and sizes; laptops and desktops and even machines with 
little more than a microprocessor and no box, all lined up, row after
row.

"When you're begging and borrowing, you have to get what you get," said
Pat 
Miller, another leader of the project and a lecturer in computer science
at 
USF. "It's kind of a stone soup."

And indeed, those who brought machines for inclusion in the project were 
excited at the prospect of taking part in something that could forever 
alter the face of large-scale computing.

"I think it's really cool," said Daniel Baker, who toted three computers
to 
Koret Gym Saturday. "It's an opportunity to be a participant in science
and 
do everything I can to perpetuate computing.... If supercomputing can be 
deployed on much greater and cost-effective levels, how much more
available 
they can become to solving important problems."

FlashMob Supercomputing is USF computer science student John Witchel's 
master's thesis project. He says proving that it's possible to utilize a 
large number of computers at little or no cost allows groups of people
who 
wouldn't normally have access to supercomputing power to address
pressing 
computational problems, such as studying global warming or breast
cancer.

"We're trying to show that we've got a usable form of (supercomputer)," 
said Witchel, who wants to "get it out of the laboratories and into the 
hands of the people."

Witchel and his colleagues were inspired, in part, by the recent 
construction by scientists at Virginia Tech of a supercomputer using
1,100 
Apple G5s. The USF team imagines smaller supercomputers could be 
constructed by any group with a couple dozen or more Wintel machines,
using 
the software they wrote for the event.

"The temporary nature of the FlashMob ad hoc supercomputing, is that you 
can put it together whenever you need one," said Miller.

Event organizers predicted they would get around 1,000 loaners for the 
project. They hoped with those machines -- all linked together through 
several hardwired hubs -- they would be able to create a single
computing 
entity big enough to make the list of the world's 500 biggest
supercomputers.

To do so, they would have had to get a sustainable performance of at
least 
403 gigaflops. (A gigaflop is a billion floating-point operations per 
second.) The FlashMob team achieved a momentary peak performance of 180 
gigaflops and a final result of 77 gigaflops, said Benson.

 From the beginning Saturday, the project was beset by problems. First, 
fewer people showed up with their PCs in hand than were expected. That
was 
evident when an entire section of the gym set up to link PCs remained 
empty. Then, problems with failing computers caused a late benchmark
test 
to come to a halt at about three-quarters completion.

In the end, the one completed benchmark utilized only 150 of the 700 PCs
in 
the room, said Benson.

"Since this was the first time, we didn't have a lot of time to figure
out 
what we had," said Benson. "I'd say that was the biggest challenge
looking 
back now -- figuring out how to make the resources we had work
together."

Throughout the morning, a large team of volunteers worked to get the 
computers up and running. In one corner of the room several of them ran
a 
makeshift "hospital" to fix problem machines. At one point, Francisco 
McGee, a volunteer, hustled a laptop from the hospital and plugged it
into 
the matrix.

"Yes!" he shouted, as he saw it come to life. "Got that shit online."
Asked 
what had happened, McGee said volunteers had given the machine "CPU
CPR."

But as morning turned into afternoon, it became clear that the
organizers 
were not getting the performance they had hoped for. Initial optimism at 
the prospect of making the Top 500 list turned quickly into hopes they 
would at least end up in the ballpark.

Miller had originally hoped the team could achieve 550 gigaflops, given
the 
belief they would have 1,000 machines on hand. But, "that's going to be
a 
push," he said around midday. "I'm hoping for 400. I think we've got 300 
cold."

However, because of an inability to keep a single failing computer from 
bringing the test to a halt, the team, pressed for time, resorted to
using 
a much smaller number of machines, and even Miller's safe 300 gigaflop 
expectation ended up unrealistic.

No matter.

For Miller, Benson, Witchel and the others involved, the real point of 
Saturday's exercise was to get a lot of people involved in making
history. 
And that they did.

"It's exactly how I envisioned it," said Witchel of the mood in the gym 
Saturday, "just tons and tons of excited people who want to make a 
difference."

Some in the supercomputing community felt the FlashMob project was a
nice 
beginning, but that people shouldn't expect to be running out to set up 
their own supercomputers right away.

"It's maybe a long way to go to accomplish the vision the organizers
have 
of an easily accessible supercomputer that could be used by everybody 
today," said Horst Simon, the associate laboratory director for
computing 
science at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and a member of the Top 500 
project. "But it's the first step, and somebody's got to start it, and 
that's why I think it's good."

For his part, Benson believes he and his team will take the lessons they 
learned Saturday and use them to improve upon their performance in the
future.

"My vision is that we're going to work on the software," he said, "now
that 
we have a little less pressure. The software we developed, we did in
five 
weeks. Now we're going to stand back and say, 'How can we make this
better?'"

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