Messages in this thread | | | From | "Michael Loftis" <> | Date | Sat, 6 Mar 1999 21:37:23 -0700 (MST) | Subject | Re: Lets get this right (WAS RE:MOSIX and kernel mods) |
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On Sat, 06 Mar 1999 17:57:51 -0500 Jeff Millar <jeff@wa1hco.mv.com> wrote:
> Within the next year, we'll have networked computer chips that > use 1-4 Gbit per second serial links between them. Imagine > a SIMM/DIMM kind of thing holding 8 CPU chips each with 64 MB on die > ...plug in as many as you like on your motherboard. The interconnect > protocol uses DSM so it looks like an SMP.
Which is exactly why itd be good to start work now. Nearby is a lab w/ 100Mbit ethernet and Giga-Ethernet. Both are very fast, and aside from using a Paragon backplane, the Giga is about as fast as it gets. This is *now* in 5 years Giga Ether will be consumer product. Imagine a 16-node Dual P-II Linux cluster on a switched full-duplex gigabit network... Right now pretty spendy (if you forgive the fact that there isn't free clustering in the kernel) but it *is* possible. Flash forward five years when the P-II can be bought at a garage sale and a Gigabit Ether switch would cost $50.
Heck even if this view is off and skewed to heck, *it is possible*. And things are getting faster, it's only a matter of time before networking is fast enough (or integrated enough) that clustering such as this would be possible.
Think ahead, think outside of the computer and equipment you have/can get now.... That's what you need to do. When you can do that you can realise that startinga project for this isn't such a stupid idea. If we get rock-solid clustering on top of the existing network layer it'll only be a matter of time before the world catches on to the possibilities of this.
But if it's going to be done, it *must* be done *right*. While the kernel may have started out as a college CS project, Linus did it *right*. If he hadn't it wouldda died. I say we keep doing things right, look ahead a bit. In a few years clustering a large amount of pentium class machines could be cheap, and it could blow away even the biggest and baddest SuperComputers....
[end of rabbit track rant]
What is being talked about, having CPUs connected to the I/O fabric (NexGenIO, I2O, whatever it may be) is not that far ahead in the future. If we've got a kernel that could be dumped on an eeprom (hey they can easily store 8MB now) and booted from these cpu cards and they could then self register with the host machine (or whatever) -- it be instant CPU upgrade, no changes, just add more horsepower!!!
Just remember, the world has its eyes on Linux. If we make a move in a certain direction *someone will notice*. And when people notice, they react.
Think.
-- Michael Loftis
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