From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4f34febc0904190058u1507f60fldc51ab3eab1f09fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <4f34febc0904190058u1507f60fldc51ab3eab1f09fe@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:48:16 -0700 Message-ID: <13426df10904200848w1a6fcc97iaa091cfa9798870c@mail.gmail.com> From: ron minnich To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: [9fans] "FAWN: Fast array of wimpy nodes" (was: Plan 9 - the next 20 years) Topicbox-Message-UUID: ea95873e-ead4-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 12:58 AM, John Barham wrote: > I certainly can't think ahead 20 years but I think it's safe to say > that the next 5 (at least doing HPC and large-scale web type stuff) > will increasingly look like this: > http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22504/?a=3Df, which talks > about building a cluster from AMD Geode (!) nodes w/ compact flash > storage. =A0Sure it's not super-fast, but it's very efficient per watt. > If you had more cash you might substitute HE Opterons and SSD's but > the principle is the same. It's nice. We did that one a few years ago. Here is the 7 year old version: http://eri.ca.sandia.gov/eri/howto.html We've been doing these with the Geode stuff since about 2006. We are certainly not the first. The RLX was doing what FAWN did about 8 years ago; orion, about 3-4 years ago (both transmeta). RLX and Orion multisystems showed there is not much of a market for lots of wimpy nodes -- yet or never, is the real question. Either way, they did not have enough buyers to stay in business. And RLX had to drop its wimpy transmetas for P4s, and they could not keep up with the cheap mainboards. It's a tough business. ron