3 ms·

Well, your impression is just wrong. Simple as that. No shame in it. Today what is called a super computer is usually just a cluster (i.e. multiple connected n

Well, your impression is just wrong. Simple as that. No shame in it. Today what is called a super computer is usually just a cluster (i.e. multiple connected normal spec computers). It is normally connected with a high speed interconnect though (100 Gbit/sec and more) what is its most defining capability. Why they are using this cluster? My speculation is that probably because it is available and does not have much use for the real scientific computing (because it is old https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/hardware-summary https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/hardware-summary) and intelligence agency prefers to rather support the academia then feed some commercial entity.

nwallin 7y ago
> It is normally connected with a high speed interconnect though (100 Gbit/sec and more) what is its most defining capability. That's his point. The high speed interconnect, the defining capability of the modern super computer, is unnecessary to solve the problem they are using a super computer to solve. They could have equally well used BOINC or some other distributed, loosely coupled technology for this. I agree with you regarding "it's available." It sounds like a press person got ahold of it and stopped paying attention once they saw the word "supercomputer".