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From: izlamabad@yahoogroups.com On Behalf Of Load Controller

IBM Proposes One Computer to Run Entire Internet

A Blue Gene P rack, which sports 1096 nodes, 4096 processors, and 2 TB memory.  (Source: IBM)

With a high degree of space efficiency, reduced power consumption, and quicker deployment, IBM looks to use its Blue Gene systems, such as the Blue Gene/P setup pictured here, to take the cluster-dominated web-hosting market by SMP storm.  (Source: IBM)

Dreaming big; IBM looks to host entire Internet on a single modified Blue Gene supercomputer.

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, is oft misquoted as stating that the world really only would need five computers.  Ironically the frequently used, erroneous quotation may come to true by the very hands of the business Watson created.
IBM launched an Epic project with an almost unfathomable goal -- to develop a single supercomputer capable of running the entire Internet as a web application.  The project, codenamed Kittyhawk (detailed in a white paper by IBM) created quite the stir in Internet technology community.
While the software details descend quickly into the realm of the cerebral, one number that jumps off the page is the estimate for the number of cores and memory for the finished proposed system -- 67.1 million cores with 32PB of memory. 
The system is based on IBM's Blue Gene/P architecture, which takes millions of cores and arranges them in a hierarchal architecture.  At the lowest level four 850 MHz Power PC cores run on a single chip, with built in memory controllers and interconnects. The next level up is the card, which contains 32 of these quad core chips known as "nodes."  Up a level, 16 cards compose a midplane.  A server rack has two midplanes, yielding a total of 1024 nodes, or 4096 processors.  Each server rack has 2TB of memory to play with.  A maximum of 16,384 racks can be networked to yield the finally staggering metrics.  As each rack has an I/O bandwidth of 640Gb/S, a "full" 67.1m core system would sport 10.4Pb/S of bandwidth.

World's biggest observation wheel set to spin in Singapore

The world's biggest observation wheel is ready to spin in Singapore on Monday night, with corporate clients paying thousands of dollars for the "inaugural flight", the company said.

At 165 meters (545 feet), or 42 stories, the Singapore Flyer will be 30 meters higher than Britain's London Eye, said Great Wheel Corp, which built the Singapore attraction.

"We're actually ahead of time and on budget," David Beevers, general manager of the Singapore Flyer, told AFP from the waterfront site. "It's all systems go."

The wheel will start twirling just before dusk Monday evening, at 1230 GMT, organizers said.

The attraction's first three nights were sold out, Beevers said. Companies and individuals paid 8,888 Singapore dollars (6,271 US dollars), an auspicious number in Chinese culture, for the first rides.

"Through the month of February... it's a whole series of private events each day that's going to allow us to ramp up to full opening March 1 for the public," Beevers said.

Groups of between 600 and 1,000 people were expected at the initial private events, Beevers said, with a formal opening to take place on April 15.

Unlike cramped, old-style Ferris wheel carriages which hang in the open air, the Singapore Flyer and other large observation wheels feature fixed "capsules".

The 28 capsules -- about the size of a city bus -- are air conditioned and can hold up to 28 people. Passengers can walk around and will not feel movement or vibration during the 30-minute ride, the company said.

"You can put over 1,000 people an hour on the wheel," Beevers said, adding that they expect to host about 10 million people a year.