Robert G. Brown wrote: >On Wed, 1 Apr 2009, Ellis Wilson wrote: > >> >> Beyond that, building an entire cluster of that size into a large >> shipping container is genius - given access and resources to a crane and >> proper machining expertise. But then again if your building a cluster >> of that size I suppose the crane, shipping container and a few welders >> are not going to be your biggest worries. >> >> Also interesting is that they use Gigabyte - I haven't been entirely >> impressed with them and that is for purely desktop use. Perhaps their >> server grade boards are better quality enough to make them worthwhile at >> that scale. > >IIRC Google doesn't use "server grade" anything. They use OTC parts and >do a running computation on failure rates and optimize price performance >dynamically. They are truly industrial scale production here. For them >servicing/replacing a system is cheap: Box dies. Employee notes this, >grabs box from Big Stack of Boxes, carries it to dead box, removes dead >box, replace it with new working box, presses power switch, walks away. >Problem solved.
This may have changed, but way back when I remember being told that Google *don't* replace dead nodes, they just turn them off. Supposedly it wasn't cost-effective to repair them or cannibalize them for other nodes. As I say, this was a good few years ago now, so the economics now may be different (or my original info might have been based on hearsay). Simon. _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
