Software1.06.2010

The biggest and best run Linux

The biannual Top500 report on the world’s biggest and best supercomputers has been released and shows that almost all of the top 500 now run Linux.

According to the report 91% of the top 500 – or 455 – run a version of the Linux operating system. Windows-based machines account for 1% and Unix-based ones for 4.4%.

The report cements Linux’s position as the clear leader in the field of supercomputing. A year ago in June 2009, Linux accounted for 88.6%, or 443, of the top 500 supercomputers. In November 2009 that had increased to 89.2%.

The other big news in this release of the Top500 report is that China now occupies the number two position. Using a combination of Intel processors and NVidia Tesla graphical processing units (GPUs) the Nebulae supercomputer turned in a top performance of 1.271 petaflop/s.

One petaflop/s refers to one quadrillion calculations per second. 

The Nebulae system, based at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, is the fastest in theoretical peak performance. With a theoretical performance of 2.98 petaflop/s the Nebulae could well secure the top spot in the next release of the report.

China also has a second system in the top 10, marking China as a serious competitor for the title of supercomputing superpower.

The top spot in the Top500 list still belongs to the Jaguar system at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. Its peak performance was 1.75 petaflop/s. Jaguar has a theoretical peak capability of 2.3 petaflop/s.

Third spot went to the recently-ousted Roadrunner with a peak performance of 1.04 petaflop/s.

With the top spots now regularly dominated by petaflop/s systems, entry to the top 500 list is tougher than ever. The entry level for the Top500 list is now 24.7 teraflop/s, up from 20 teraflop/s six months ago.

The top supercomputer, the Jaguar, has 224 162 cores while the second-place Nebulae has 120 640 cores.

South Africa’s Tsessebe supercomputer, based at the Centre for High Performance Computing in Cape Town, was listed at position 461.

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