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Welcome to Limulus Compting

Limulus HPC Workstations

Limulus Computing (previously Basement Supercomputing) is in transition! We are moving our Limulus turn-key clustered systems store to Limulus-Computing.com. We expect the transition be complete by mid-year. Until that time, both Limulus Computing and Basement Supercomputing will resolve to this site.

We offer high performance turn-key desk-side and rack-mount cluster appliances. Our systems are designed for ease of use and offer local HPC, Hadoop/Spark, and Deep Learning solutions (Edge Computing). All systems are ready to run upon delivery and provide a true turn-key cluster computer that fits within an office/lab power/noise/heat envelope. More information can be found on our FAQ page as well as the system descriptions. Our customers include industry and academic clients. We also offer training and consultation services.

Update Nov 9 2021: Fortunately, most prices and delivery times have stabilized, however it is still best to contact us directly to confirm your system availability.

Latest News:

Nov 9, 2021: We are happy to announce the availability of our AMD Ryzen 5000 (Zen-3 ) Limulus HPC systems (Hadoop systems coming soon). Like the previous Zen-2 (Ryzen 3000) systems, models are available with 24, 32, and 64 cores and use ECC memory. The new Ryzen 5000 systems now offer faster Zen-3 cores, DDR4-3200 ECC memory, and NVMe over PCI-4 for improved main node storage throughput. The lower priced Ryzen 3000 (Xen-2) systems will still be available for a limited time.

Mar 18, 2021: Beowulf and cluster maven Jeff Layton wrote a great article entitled Desktop Supercomputers: Past, Present, and Future in HPC Admin. In the article he discusses Limulus systems as a current option for desktop (actually desk side) supercomputing. Jeff's coverage is always complete and very thorough (and he has published quite a number of classic cluster articles on Cluster Monkey). As 2021 progresses, expect more exciting advances from Limulus Computing.

Oct 6, 2020: Limulus V2 now has additional 3.5 inch drive bays. This change allows more spinning hard disk (HDD) storage for both NFS and HDFS (Hadoop Distributed Filesystem). The new Hadoop/Spark Data Analytics cluster (Model 452) supports up to 112 TBytes of raw HDFS storage using enterprise-level HDD drives .

May 29, 2020: One feature that was not mentioned in the previous announcement is the availability of 25 Gigabit Ethernet (25 GbE). The new 25 GbE option is available on base models 102, 202, 302, and 402 and comes standard on models 1202 and 1302.The price to upgrade is the same as the previous 10 GbE option. Benchmarks are forthcoming .

May 7, 2020: Limulus version 2 is here! This new series of machines delivers new features, lower prices, and more performance. The big news are the new micro ATX blades. All Limulus systems (desk-side and rack-mount) can now support almost any micro ATX based motherboard and processor (less than 80W TDP). In terms of processors, all systems now come with AMD Ryzen CPUs. This change brings two new features.

  1. True next generation performance with more cores (up to 8 per processor), fast clocks (up to 3.6 GHz), and threads.
  2. ECC memory (fully qualified with the Linux Kernel) is now standard on all systems

In terms of storage, we have increased our RAID storage options in both size (up to 54 TB of RAID6 on basic systems) and capability (systems now have six removable HDD bays). In terms of cost, all version 2 Limulus systems (with exception of a slight increase for the Hadoop model 1302) have a lower price AND more capabilities! Take a look at the new high-performance low-cost Limulus lineup.

Finally, we can optimize any system by component or geometry (with 3D printing). If you need specific hardware (i.e. Intel processors) please contact us directly.

Nov 17, 2019: Below are some pictures of the new low-cost Limulus V2.0 blades. These images below are prototypes, we will be posting updated images after SC19 in Denver. If you are attending the show, you can see the blades and how they fit into the LImulus case at Booth 996 (under Gidel on show map, look for Limulus Computing). We will also be showing our new Ryzen (Zen 2) nodes with ECC memory, headless booting, and lots of cores. We have also included some i7 nodes to show the "mix and match" capability of the new blades. Click for larger images. There is also a new master data sheet for all systems.


Looking at the back of the blade
Looking at the top from the front

Oct 30, 2019: Limulus 2.0 will be officially announced at SC19 in Denver. This evolutionary design will offer uATX blades for Limulus systems (desk-side and rack-mount). This feature allows easy (hot swap) removal and the ability to mix and match blades. The following CAD images provide a small preview of the new systems. The image on the right is the "front" where blades (gold ) are vertically loaded into a desk-side case. The blue parts are the blade support guides that fit into our desk-side case. The view on the right shows the "side" of the blades with the hot-swap connectors (the three blue boxes on the upper right side). Check back as SC19 approaches for more information on the new Limulus 2.0 Edge systems. (Click on images for larger view.)

August 22, 2019: A new white paper comparing a Limulus to Amazon EC2 instances. In this careful study equivalent EC2 cluster instances were configured using current pricing (Spring 2019). The results were quite interesting. From the Executive Summary:

  • The Limulus appliance meets or exceeds the capabilities of a similar cluster configured using EC2 instances.
  • The one-year lease cost for a comparably configured EC2 cluster equals or exceeds the purchase price of a Limulus cluster
    • appliance.
  • If the cost of renting EC2 instances for one year is applied to purchasing a Limulus appliance, the resource will provide at least 2-3 years of service.
  • Software configuration and support costs are not part of the cloud instance cost. Limulus appliances are turn-key and require minimal administration effort.
The full paper is available from Cluster Monkey (reg required). If you don't want to register on Cluster Monkey, you can Contact Limulus Computing directly and we gladly will send you a copy.

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