[AG-TECH] Hardware news - towards a single machine node

[Ivan R. Judson]

Hey all,

I'll be working in the next few weeks on a written definition of AG Node
Requirements.  This will mostly be formalizing alot of the information we
already have.  This will shake out what it is we expect the current 4
machine node to do.  Defining what this functionality is, and building the
API's for each component will let us explore this kind of idea without
impacting the current operating schedule of the AG (ie, we're way too
successful to have people randomly breaking nodes for experiments).

One part of this is to define "Core Node Functionality" and "Auxillary Node
Functionality".  This is the line between what a minimum node is (the Core
Functionality) and what a cool far out node might include (microscopes,
milling machines, mood indicators, whatever).  If you have ideas for what
you might augment a node with, please send those to me so I can include them
as examples...

Any thoughts?  Ideas?  Are you going to toss me off the ship yet?

--Ivan

PS -- Oh my, we might actually start version numbering!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov]On
> Behalf Of Jeff Ramacher
> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 7:15 PM
> To: Todd Needham
> Cc: disz at mcs.anl.gov; Ag-Tech at Mcs. Gov
> Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] Hardware news - towards a single machine node
>
>
> I think it would be really cool (but probably way too expensive to
> develop) to move some of the AV processing off of the system CPU to a
> special purpose AG pci board or something like that.  Does anyone know
> if there's a "vic in a chip" kind of thing already?
>
> Just my thoughts on a Friday afternoon...
> --
> jeffr
>
> Todd Needham wrote:
> >
> > Given discussions regarding CPU requirements for a single machine node,
> > thought you might like to know I saw a pre-production dual P4 (1.7GHz
> > Foster) from Dell today: 64 & 32 bit PCI buses, built-in 1394, onboard
> > fast Ethernet.  The real news is that they expect to start shipping
> > these in May with a reasonable starting configuration under $4K.
> > Needless to say, 4 cameras and all those video streams are not going to
> > be an issue.
> >
> >
> >
> > We also had discussions with Viewcast/Osprey about getting P4-optimized
> > drivers for their capture cards and we're following up separately with
> > their development team next week.  It would still be nice to get all of
> > this running on a single proc P4 to keep the cost down even further.
> >
> >
> >
> > Todd Needham
> >
> > Manager, Research Programs Group
> >
> > Microsoft Research
> >
> > http://research.microsoft.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> --
> Jeff Ramacher (jeffr at mhpcc.edu)                | (808) 879-5077, x264
> Maui High Performance Computing Center (MHPCC) | fax (808) 879-5018
>                                                | http://www.mhpcc.edu
>