research-article

Project Kittyhawk: building a global-scale computer: Blue Gene/P as a generic computing platform

Authors:

Jonathan Appavoo,

Amos WaterlandAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Volume 42, Issue 1

Pages 77 - 84

https://doi.org/10.1145/1341312.1341326

Published: 01 January 2008 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes Project Kittyhawk, an undertaking at IBM Research to explore the construction of a next-generation platform capable of hosting many simultaneous web-scale workloads. We hypothesize that for a large class of web-scale workloads the Blue Gene/P platform is an order of magnitude more efficient to purchase and operate than the commodity clusters in use today. Driven by scientific computing demands the Blue Gene designers pursued an aggressive system-on-a-chip methodology that led to a scalable platform composed of air-cooled racks. Each rack contains more than a thousand independent computers with highspeed interconnects inside and between racks.

We postulate that the same demands of efficiency and density apply to web-scale platforms. This project aims to develop the system software to enable Blue Gene/P as a generic platform capable of being used by heterogeneous workloads. We describe our firmware and operating system work to provide Blue Gene/P with generic system software, one of the results of which is the ability to run thousands of heterogeneous Linux instances connected by TCP/IP networks over the high-speed internal interconnects.

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Cited By

Hennessey JTikale STurk AKaynar EHill CDesnoyers PKrieger O(2016)HILProceedings of the Seventh ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing10.1145/2987550.2987588(155-168)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2987550.2987588
Ouyang JKocoloski BLange JPedretti KKielmann THildebrand DTaufer M(2015)Achieving Performance Isolation with Lightweight Co-KernelsProceedings of the 24th International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1145/2749246.2749273(149-160)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2749246.2749273
Costa PDonnelly AO'Shea GRowstron AParashar MWeissman JEpema DFigueiredo R(2013)CamCubeOSProceedings of the 22nd international symposium on High-performance parallel and distributed computing10.1145/2493123.2462917(73-84)Online publication date: 17-Jun-2013
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Project Kittyhawk: building a global-scale computer: Blue Gene/P as a generic computing platform

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review

ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review Volume 42, Issue 1

January 2008

133 pages

ISSN:0163-5980

DOI:10.1145/1341312

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2008 Authors.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 January 2008

Published in SIGOPS Volume 42, Issue 1

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Cited By

Hennessey JTikale STurk AKaynar EHill CDesnoyers PKrieger O(2016)HILProceedings of the Seventh ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing10.1145/2987550.2987588(155-168)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2987550.2987588
Ouyang JKocoloski BLange JPedretti KKielmann THildebrand DTaufer M(2015)Achieving Performance Isolation with Lightweight Co-KernelsProceedings of the 24th International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1145/2749246.2749273(149-160)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2015
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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2493123.2462917
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Lange JPedretti KDinda PBridges PBae CSoltero PMerritt A(2011)Minimal-overhead virtualization of a large scale supercomputerACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2007477.195270546:7(169-180)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2011
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Kecskemeti GTerstyanszky GKacsuk PNeméth Z(2011)An approach for virtual appliance distribution for service deploymentFuture Generation Computer Systems10.1016/j.future.2010.09.00927:3(280-289)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2011
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Youseff LDa Silva DButrico MAppavoo J(2010)Understanding the Cloud Computing LandscapeCloud Computing and Software Services10.1201/EBK1439803158-c1(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Jul-2010
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Appavoo JWaterland ADa Silva DUhlig VRosenburg BVan Hensbergen EStoess JWisniewski RSteinberg UHariri SKeahey K(2010)Providing a cloud network infrastructure on a supercomputerProceedings of the 19th ACM International Symposium on High Performance Distributed Computing10.1145/1851476.1851534(385-394)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2010
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