Apple Serves Up Supercomputing at University

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) made headlines a year ago when a computing cluster based on its Xserve server landed a spot on the top 10 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

Now the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is on the Apple cart with a recently implemented Xserve cluster named the Turing Cluster, after famed scientist Alan Turing.

The Turing Cluster uses 640 dual 2 GHz Xserves for a total of 1,280 processors, each with 4 GB of RAM. The Xserves are installed in 19 racks, with 32 to 35 Xserves each. The Turing Cluster uses two Xserve RAIDs for a total of seven terabytes of storage.

Linpack Benchmarking Software

The Turing Cluster is operated by the university's interdepartmental Computational Science and Engineering group. Students and faculty may use the cluster for school-related projects. University officials expect the cluster to reach about 5 teraflops when system administrators run the Linpack benchmarking software next week.

That could position it as high as number 30 on the Top500 list of supercomputers. Does this validate Apple's position in the server market? Rob Enderle, principal analyst of the Enderle Group, told MacNewsWorld that this is more about experimentation than validation.

"Universities build supercomputers to showcase the competence of their students," Enderle said. "The Apple product is subsidized by software, so it's a relatively inexpensive platform to do this kind of test on."

Enderle said universities compete each year to see who can build the most high-powered supercomputer, but most of them are dismantled rather than finding ongoing use as a work platform.

An Exercise

Last September, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's National Center for Supercomputing Applications cobbled together Sony (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation 2s to form a Linux cluster that was projected to calculate a half trillion operations per second.

"This is good press for Apple and for the university," Enderle said. "But it's an exercise. I'd call it a stunt that pulls a lot of publicity."

Apple provided the equipment to the school "under a combination purchase/donation agreement." Apple executives could not immediately be reached for comment.