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It seems EXTREMELY unlikely that Cray would be unable to meet performance requirements and promises. They've consistently done so for decades in all manner of
by tw04 3y ago
It seems EXTREMELY unlikely that Cray would be unable to meet performance requirements and promises. They've consistently done so for decades in all manner of government and private institutions.
- MaxikCZ 3y agoCray was never selected. Either they didn't submit an offer, or their price was too high.
- Kon-Peki 3y agoI've sat in on plenty of B2B sales pitches, and am fairly certain that no salesman ever believes that you will actually run those tests. And if even if you did, that you would actually throw away a full year of integration work to go with the backup plan. Plus, having seen/heard a lot about how salesman are employed - all too often their commission/compensation is locked in when the contract is signed. They get their money regardless of what happens a year or two down the road, and are thus incentivized to "misrepresent" performance and capabilities.
- stonogo 3y agoAny sane HPC program has an acceptance testing phase in the delivery terms of the contract, with specific penalties (IBM calls them "considerations") for failing to meet the technical requirements. Sales teams in the HPC are extremely aware of this. Blue Waters is a great example of throwing away years of work and pivoting to the backup plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Waters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Waters
- singleshot_ 3y agoUgliest day in a salesman’s life: the day he learns about “clawback.”
- stonogo 3y agoNo, they've consistently paid penalties for not doing so, especially during the decade or so their network stack tended to implode, taking the shared filesystem with it. They also benefited, during those decades, from an NSA program explicitly designed to fund US HPC OEMs in order to maintain American industry leadership in the space. I think it was a good policy, but it doesn't mean that Cray was hitting home runs right up to the HPE acquisition.
- fweimer 3y agoHPE Cray are involved with Aurora: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(supercomputer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(supercomputer) As far as I understand it, the project saw substantial delays so far.
- wmf 3y agoThe Aurora delays were clearly caused by Intel.