Why Does the Air Force Want Thousands of PlayStations?

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http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/air-force-thousands-playstations/story?id=9272180


Clusters of High-Performance Gaming Consoles Can Serve as Supercomputers



Sony's popular PlayStation 3 gaming console. Thousands of them.

The Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., recently issued a request for proposal indicating its intention to purchase 2,200 PlayStation 3 (PS3) consoles.

But the military researchers don't plan to play "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" or any of the season's other blockbuster games. They plan to string the consoles together into a massive supercomputer and study how well they can enhance the military's high-performance computing systems.

What makes the PlayStation so interesting to Linderman and his bargain-hunting colleagues is the PS3's mega-powerful Cell processor, which was created jointly by IBM, Sony and Toshiba.

According to a document accompanying the Air Force RFP, a server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8,000, while two Sony PS3s cost just a fraction of that price at about $600.

The two cell processors are about 33 percent more powerful than the PS3s, but the document went on to say that the PS3s are still more cost-effective.

But the Air Force researchers aren't the only ones to harness the power of the PlayStation consoles. From coast to coast, academic and military computer scientists are stringing the consoles together in various projects.

-snip-

And even the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's Cyber Crimes Center has used linked PS3s to solve Internet crimes.
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[Cid_B]

1. Cool...

I was gonna say MWR but that's interesting too...

[hayu_lol]

3. Perhaps to teach budding pilots...

how to fly drones. Develop their own software to duplicate the actual 'virtual' cockpit.

[TheDebbieDee]

10. I think you've hit the nail on the head!

[L0oniX]

2. You can't have my PS3.

[WT Fuheck]

4. well who wouldn't?

With their budget, they can afford them.

[TheWraith]

5. This sounds like the sort of thing that happens when you combine software engineers and alcohol. nt

[YOY]

6. and they'll pay 10 - times the sticker price for them.

Somebody went golfing with a Sony Exec!

I see one more fucking terribly negotiated contract in my little department I'm going to barf.

[Cirque du So-What]

7. I was part of a supercomputing effort several years ago where I worked

Everyone's PC was made available to a server that utilized available memory for finite element analysis as part of a research project.

[MineralMan]

8. Actually, it's a very clever solution to save money on putting together

a massively-parallel supercomputer network. The PS is actually quite a powerful little computer, and its price is low, since the plan is to sell lots and lots of games to people. That's where the profits are, and that gives people who want to link a bunch of them together for use as a supercomputer a real money-saving opportunity.

They won't be playing games on these...they're using them for another purpose altogether and saving taxpayer's dollars by doing it this way.

If you read the article, you'll learn that the same strategy is in use by universities and other people needing lots of computing power at a low budget.

Not everything the military does is stupid or wastes money. Reading is a good thing, and all the question are answered in the article.

[Davis_X_Machina]

11. Like Linux and Beowulf clusters...an old-ish idea.

Link.

[rd_kent]

9. Maybe so they can better monitor "nuke events" around the world.

[Obamanaut]

12. The answer to question in the subject line appears to be in the

body of the message, and the link.

[Fumesucker]

13. PS3s are already being used in Folding@Home quite successfully..

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3