FlashMob I: A First Step Toward Practical Instant Supercomputing

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FlashMob I: A First Step Toward Practical Instant Supercomputing

4/8/2004

By Greg Benson

FlashMob Computing started as a challenge. Could we convince enough people to bring their conventional computers to a single location in order to build a temporary supercomputer, one that could compete with the fastest and most expensive computers in the world? Since its inception in February of this year, the idea of FlashMob Computing transformed from a challenge to a new paradigm for enabling any group of people to pool together computing power for the purpose of working on scientific problems of interest to them. Unlike traditional supercomputers, which are expensive and not accessible to the general public, a FlashMob supercomputer is temporary, made up of ordinary computers, and is built to work on a specific problem. We set out to prove, through an elaborate experiment, that instant supercomputing is viable.

On April 3, 2004, the University of San Francisco hosted the first FlashMob Computing event: FlashMob I. By all measures, the event was a fantastic success. We had over 700 computers come into the gym and we wired them to a network switch donated by Foundry Networks. After the last computers arrived and were installed by 11:00am we used our custom software to begin pooling the collective power of the computers to work on the Linpack benchmark, a mathematical application that is used to determine supercomputing speed. Through a series of tests, we were able to run the benchmark on 256 of the computers and achieved a peak rate of 180 Gflops (billions of calculations per second), although this computation stopped three quarters of the way through due to a node failure. Our best, complete run used 150 computers and resulted in 77 Gflops. Both of these results show that it is possible to achieve substantial computational speed from a temporary supercomputer. Time constraints and unanticipated problems prevented us from using all 700 computers simultaneously, but one goal of the FlashMob I experiment was to identify issues involved in getting a large number of very different computers to work together. This valuable experience will enable us to improve our software for future FlashMob computers.

FlashMob I presented both technical and logistical challenges. We worked furiously for five weeks on the software that would ultimately run off CD-ROM disks inserted into each of the volunteer computers. A novel aspect of the software is that we boot and run directly off of the CD-ROM, so that the hard disk is not touched at all. This technique enables all the computers in a FlashMob to quickly run the same operating system and applications without installing anything onto the hard disk. We only use the processor and memory of volunteer computers, making it "safe" for people to loan their computers without fear of loosing data. To this end, an important logistical component of large-scale FlashMob Computing is a registration and asset tracking system for volunteer equipment. Volunteer computers need to be tagged and associated with owners so that everyone gets their computer back at the end of the day. Not only can future FlashMob computers leverage off our software, but they can also use our registration process as a model.