32 cores of fast ARM in half-depth 1U case

32 cores of fast ARM in half-depth 1U case(baserock.com)

65 points by rjek 13 years ago | 39 comments

mdwrigh2 13 years ago |

Calxeda has been building 16 core cards[1] for awhile now with about 18 fitting in a 1U-sized box[2], each card connected by 10GbE similar to this[3].

[1]: http://www.calxeda.com/technology/products/energycards/quadn...

[2]: http://semiaccurate.com/2011/11/03/calxeda-launches-a-4-core...

[3]: http://www.calxeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/EnergyCard...

colanderman 13 years ago | |

Not to mention Tilera, who makes 36-core chips/cards [1], with 4 in a 1U box [2], with each processor with connected to each its four neighbors by a 250 Gb/s link.

[1] http://tilera.com/products/processors/TILE-Gx_Family [2] http://tilera.com/products/platforms [3] http://www.tilera.com/technology

JVIDEL 13 years ago | | |

But Tilera uses its own architecture, ARM on the other hand is nearly everywhere.

There were other companies like Tilera: Transputer, Connection Machine.......SiCortex was founded in 2003 with a similar idea and was shutting down by 2009

The problems with these architectures is cost: mass market tech like x86 and ARM offers more bang for your buck

ricardobeat 13 years ago | | |

Interesting that these can run a single OS as a huge multi-core machine.

neckbeard 13 years ago | | |

It might be worth pointing out that TileGX isn't ARM.

It is an interesting system though.

wcchandler 13 years ago | |

HP has also been working on Project Moonshot which (I believe) is based on Calxeda.

http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/iss/110111.aspx

rjek 13 years ago | |

And you can buy them where, exactly? :)

mdwrigh2 13 years ago | | |

Boston Limited should be shipping Viridis units now [1][2].

[1]: http://www.boston.co.uk/solutions/viridis/default.aspx

[2]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/09/boston_viridis_arm_s...

ajross 13 years ago |

Not a 32 core computer. It's 8 4-core SoCs with independent storage connected by a 5 Gbps network switch. Not a useless machine (it's a cheap way to buy lots of DRAM bandwidth, I'll note), but not what the headline is selling as.

rbanffy 13 years ago | |

With the right software and if you don't look it from too close, it can be considered a single computer.

We've been doing things like these for decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMScluster

Yes, I'm that old.

lvh 13 years ago | |

Did the headline change? The one I see now just says that it's 32 cores in a tiny box, not that it's one machine specifically.

sciurus 13 years ago | | |

The site itself is a little misleading. It says "The Baserock Slab is a multi-processor server". To me, calling something a multi-processor server implies that a single OS instance has access to all the hardware. Instead, this is eight independent systems in a single chassis. Which is still awesome for that suggested use cases, such as an ARM build system.

ajross 13 years ago | | |

I didn't say it was factually incorrect, I said (implied, I guess) it was misleading. You're seriously saying you read that and understood it meant 8 (!) distinct machines on one board?

rys 13 years ago | |

So each quad-core SoC appears to the outside world as its own system and only communicates via Ethernet? Not useless at all, but it's not clear how the SoCs are presented.

rjek 13 years ago | | |

Yeah, it's eight individual systems with two very fast Ethernet links to an on-board managed switch.

montecarl 13 years ago |

Looks neat. It should have a redundant power supply though. With redundant power just one of these could be a good platform for deploying fault-tolerant services.

EwanToo 13 years ago | |

I think the point of this kind of server is to build the fault tolerance at the rack, or at least 1U, level, not at the level of individual components.

If an individual server fails then your service shouldn't even blink.

K2h 13 years ago |

The picture shows 8 tiny fans mounted inside (not counting the fan probably inside the PS)

I would have thought that part of the reason for going to ARM is the low power - hopefully no moving parts. It would have been cool (ha) to see them pull it off without fans.

ricardobeat 13 years ago | |

When you have 608 of those in a rack I think the fans are very welcome :)

patrickgzill 13 years ago |

2GB per node - not enough IMHO (at least for the use I was thinking of ).

alexfoo 13 years ago |

Cost?

icefox 13 years ago | |

At first I thought it was just a marketing page to see if there is interest, but on the spec sheet it says "Order now from Codethink for September delivery", but again, no price

rurounijones 13 years ago |

What is the advantage of a half width server?

I mean with all the connectors on it it isn't like you can put two of em into a 1U slot.

rjek 13 years ago | |

Half depth, not width. Everything comes out the front, so you mount them back-to-back in a rack.

brk 13 years ago | | |

Been a while since I was heavily involved in high-density data centers... How does that work with traditional hot aisle/cold aisle layouts? Seems like you'd need to adjust the cooling to have an air channel up the middle of the rack?

lrm242 13 years ago | |

Rack then w/ ports out. And you can put two back to back.

AllTheThings 13 years ago |

From my understanding of ARM architecture, ARM cores cannot process heavy data loads in a power-efficient manner, making TDP under heavy server conditions prohibitively high. Am I right about this? I've never tried making an ARM server of my own.

rjek 13 years ago | |

What understanding is it that you have that suggests that? It can shovel data via DMA as well as the next architecture.

AllTheThings 13 years ago | | |

Well I'm not referring to reading/writing from a data store, but actually processing the data in registers and such. Arithmetic operations and that sort of thing.

alexyoung 13 years ago |

Imagine a Beowulf of those!

Symmetry 13 years ago | |

I know you meant that as a joke, but I'd imagine one of these really would be an excellent candidate for being turned into a cluster.

alexyoung 13 years ago | | |

I meant it as a joke, while also recognising that it would be ideal for being turned into a cluster. It's made me nostalgic about the days when I built Beowulfs at university!

electic 13 years ago |

Completely random, but I think it is funny the company is named "CodeThink Limited." That can't be good.