PS3 Cluster
Well, with it's 1 PPE and 8 SPE (that's 1 main processing core with 8 pipelines vector co-core processors), it has a theoretical performance of more than hundred GFLOPS (that's billions of floating point operations per second to the slightly technical minded people). The Top500 fastest computers starts with a few TFLOPS, so clustering a few of these low cost mini monsters should theoretically be able get yourself list on the list, albeit temporarily. I am sure there are people in the scientific community running FORTRAN or C code, using simulation such as Monte Carlo, would be interested in a low cost alternative. The PS3 comes with many networking ports, so that's a good start for clustering, it can run Fedora Core 5 on it (check out the IBM website on this) which means that there should not be a problem with programming.
Anyone out there who wants to jointly develop this, being a poor academician, I can't even afford a PS3, so you guessed it. Have ideas, no money ... sigh ...
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Training
Setting Up a Training Centre
I just returned from a short crash course for Novell Linux Certification and it dawn upon me that the setup cost for such a business is very low. A small training room, a RM3,000 projector, some used Pentium 4 PCs with 1GB of memory and some tables and chairs. That's all?
Now, it can't be that easy right? CSA just sent out a marketing email that they are conducting a 5 day course on some virtualization technology and they are charging RM3,000 per person. In a small class of 10, that's RM30,000 per week? Sounds easy ... not! In setting up a centre for short courses, many other things are involved. Constant marketing and constant cancellation of classes are common, very much like a low-cost carrier! Overall margins are not as lucrative but then hey, investment is also quite small. Any takers?
I just returned from a short crash course for Novell Linux Certification and it dawn upon me that the setup cost for such a business is very low. A small training room, a RM3,000 projector, some used Pentium 4 PCs with 1GB of memory and some tables and chairs. That's all?
Now, it can't be that easy right? CSA just sent out a marketing email that they are conducting a 5 day course on some virtualization technology and they are charging RM3,000 per person. In a small class of 10, that's RM30,000 per week? Sounds easy ... not! In setting up a centre for short courses, many other things are involved. Constant marketing and constant cancellation of classes are common, very much like a low-cost carrier! Overall margins are not as lucrative but then hey, investment is also quite small. Any takers?
Highly Technical Training for the Industry?
Linux Kernel Internals Anyone?
I don't think so but then these courses are offered in the United States targeting the industry. Anyone out there think that such a course would be marketable in Malaysia or in the South East Asian region? If so, I would like to hear from you.
I don't think so but then these courses are offered in the United States targeting the industry. Anyone out there think that such a course would be marketable in Malaysia or in the South East Asian region? If so, I would like to hear from you.
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