Sign up for our newsletter and get the latest big data news and analysis.
Daily
Weekly

Hardware is free

From Doug Eadline over at Linux Magazine

When I’m talking to people about HPC I like to make what I call “provocative over generalizations.” My intention is to stimulate discussion and maybe get people to look at something from a different angle. One of my favorites line sounds like this, “You know in a sense, HPC hardware is now free.” Some curious looks, then someone says, “your crazy.” Then it is my turn. I qualify my statement with the fact that if an organization spends five or even six figures on a cluster, that is cheap compared to what a supercomputer cost in the past. And, it is cheap compared to the cost of the people required program and run the thing – which is the point of my argument. Some discussion of “What do you mean by cost?” usually follows. I have of course neglected infrastructure cost, but by this time they have taken the bait and we are talking about how you can put a large amount of computing power into someones hands real cheap these days.

Resource Links: