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Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: sevenlayermuddle on October 28, 2014, 01:29:30 PM

Title: New Met Office computer
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on October 28, 2014, 01:29:30 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29789208

This seems to be the spec.   Interesting it runs Linux.  ;)

http://www.cray.com/Products/Computing/XC/Specs/Specifications-XC40.aspx

Also of interest is the 90kW per cabinet maximum power consumption.   :o

As an aside I'll indulge in a bit of a BBC bashing grump...
Quote
At 140 tonnes, it will also be three times heavier.
That always gets my back up.  Do they mean three times as heavy?   To me, it implies four times as heavy?  But whichever it is they mean, why not say it?

Grump over.
Title: Re: New Met Office computer
Post by: roseway on October 28, 2014, 03:24:44 PM
I agree with your grump at the end, but unfortunately that particular genie is long out of the bottle and isn't going to go back.

Concering the operating system, as of June this year 97% of supercomputers run on Linux systems.
http://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1
Title: Re: New Met Office computer
Post by: broadstairs on October 28, 2014, 05:42:31 PM
I noticed this today but was somewhat miffed that IBM did not get the contract and this is replacing an IBM one. Not good for my pension  :no:

Stuart
Title: Re: New Met Office computer
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on October 28, 2014, 07:22:12 PM
I noticed this today but was somewhat miffed that IBM did not get the contract and this is replacing an IBM one. Not good for my pension  :no:

Stuart

Oddly I have a vague recollection from the 70s which I may have imagined, when big mainframes were either IBM or ICL, that the Met Office had a Cray.   That was as I recall the first, and maybe last, time I really heard of Cray in my sheltered life. 

But I'm sure they've had other computers since.

Lets just be grateful, in these days of 'austerity', they've not been fobbed off with a second hand Dell desktop.  :D