The fastest and most expensive mainframe setup I know of is made by IBM and it is the Blue Gene line.
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gene They developed it originally for Lawrence Livermore, I believe, to do nuclear simulations and specifically to look at the safety and effectiveness of the nuclear stockpile as an alternative to going out and blowing some things up for reals. If I recall, IBM was selling racks of BlueGene, each of which had 1,024 processors, for about $2 million a rack or so. Lawrence Livermore deployed a 64 rack configuration. There have been additional iterations of the BlueGene line since the first cluster went live, I'm not really sure how much they cost now, but yeah, I don't think it would be too difficult to give IBM a call and order a $40 million dollar computer. Of course the really hard part is getting software to effectively *use* that computing power. That is likely to set you back as much or more than the hardware itself I'd think. Massively parallel programming isn't a really common skill set and things start to get esoteric quickly. Judah On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 9:06 PM, Dana <[email protected]> wrote: > > find me a *mainfram* computer that costs that much and I'll tell you if I > agree. > > On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Gruss Gott <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> > Dana wrote: >> > >> > Who here thinks a mainframe computer is a good investment for 47 mil? >> > >> >> Well let's take a small medicare plan I know: they're looking to >> eliminate $200mil in fraud, waste, and abuse next year. >> >> It's tricky though, here's why: >> >> Sometimes it's human error (waste), sometimes it's "bending the rules" >> (abuse), and sometimes providers know exactly what the holes in claims >> systems are and they exploit them (fraud). >> >> In order to prevent all of that you need to have a massive rules >> engine that can ID and prevent the "leakage". >> >> If a supercomputer can do that and costs $47mil, but it can save >> $200mil/yr ... well that's a pretty good business case. >> >> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:305703 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
