HP wins on share, IBM on performance for supercomputers

IBM’s BlueGene/L remains the T-Rex of the supercomputing universe, but the company is no longer the top seller of systems represented on the Top500 Supercomputing Sites list. Hewlett-Packard Co. can now claim that title.

IBM is responsible for 192 systems, or 38.4 per cent, on the biannual list, which was updated Wednesday, but HP was at 202 or 40.4 per cent. A year ago, IBM had 239 systems on the list — or nearly 48 per cent — and HP had 156, or 31 per cent.

In terms of the most powerful machines, IBM didn’t have to pump up its BlueGene/L at U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to maintain its lead. Its Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 trillion floating-point operations per second (TFLOPS) is more than double the performance of its closest competitors, and exactly the same as IBM reported one year ago today. This is IBM’s fourth straight time at the top of the ranking.

But what makes the latest Top500 list particularly interesting are the trends represented by the broader pool of users populating the standings.

Use of Intel Corp. processors is up: 289, or nearly 58 per cent, of the supercomputers on the list have Intel chips. Six months ago, 261, 52.5 per cent, of the systems used Intel processors. Advanced Micro Devices Inc.’s Opteron chip has the No. 2 spot, with 105 of the systems, 21 per cent of the total. But that’s down from 113 systems, or 22.6 per cent, six months ago.

Those concerned about U.S. competitiveness should take note: A year ago, the U.S. had 298 of the 500 systems, it now has 281. The No. 2 geographic region is Europe, with 127 systems. That’s up from 83 a year ago.

Supercomputing users, who are typically relentless about upgrading, are moving as quickly as they can to dual-core processors. Dual-core chips are now the dominant processor architecture, and in six months alone the number of systems using Intel’s Woodcrest chip jumped from 31 to 205. AMD’s Opteron is also growing more popular: 90 systems are now using AMD’s dual-core product, up from 75 six months ago.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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