Rybka Cluster Rental Program

[kingliveson]

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=20058

Overview

The Rybka Cluster is a high-performance supercomputer located in Minden/Westfalen, Germany. Combining software and hardware engineering, the Rybka Cluster features exclusive Rybka versions not available to the public running on customized hardware built with the specific goal of providing top Rybka performance at an affordable price.

Starting on February 1, 2011, the Rybka Cluster will be available to the public for the first time under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program.

History

The Rybka Cluster was initiated in September 2008, when an initial version was built just in time to participate in the 2008 ICGA World Computer Chess Championship in Beijing. The first results were promising and steady improvement in both software and hardware ensued. By December 2010, the Rybka Cluster had evolved into a polished chess analysis tool.

Cumulative figures (as of December 2010) include:

- 2,000 hours of remote client logins
- 4,000 hours of direct cluster testing
- 60,000 hours of software-simulated cluster testing
- 12 major computer chess tournament wins in 12 attempts, including 2 ACCA World Championships and 3 ICGA World Championships

Timeline:

Launched with 40 physical cores in September 2008.
Wins 16th ICGA World Computer Chess Championship in October 2008.
First private client login in October 2008.
Wins 28th Dutch Open Computer Chess Championship in November 2008.
Upgraded to 52 physical cores in March 2009.
Wins 11th CCT Tournament in March 2009.
Wins 14th ICGA Open Hardware Computer Chess Olympiad in May 2009.
Wins 17th ICGA World Computer Chess Championship on 8 physical cores in May 2009.
Obtains positive score in 10 out of 11 informal mini-matches against top human centaurs in the summer of 2009.
Upgraded to 56 physical cores in August 2009
Wins 3rd ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship in August 2009.
Upgraded to 72 physical cores in October 2009.
Wins 29th Dutch Open Computer Chess Championship in October 2009.
Wins 4th ACCA Americas' Computer Chess Championship in November 2009.
Finishes with a positive score in all 11 informal mini-matches against top human centaurs by November 2009.
Upgraded to 104 physical cores in February 2010.
Wins Mundial Chess Freestyle tournament in February 2010.
Complete set of UCI analysis features supported in March 2010.
Upgraded to 128 physical cores in May 2010.
Wins 10th International CSVN Tournament in May 2010.
Wins 4th ACCA World Computer Rapid Chess Championship in July 2010.
Fully automated remote operation in September 2010.
Upgraded to 200 physical cores in September 2010.
Wins 18th ICGA World Computer Chess Championship in September 2010.
Upgraded to 260 physical cores in November 2010.
Wins 30th Dutch Open Computer Chess Championship in November 2010.
Upgraded to 296 physical cores in December 2010.

A collection of all public games played by the Rybka Cluster can be found here.

Hardware

A computer cluster is a collection of individual computers which act together as a single bigger computer. The challenge is to split the work in such a way that the relatively slow communication between the individual computers is tolerable. When this is accomplished, clustering provides a flexible and relatively inexpensive way to create and maintain a high-performance supercomputer.

The Rybka Cluster, designed, owned and overseen by Lukas Cimiotti, is built from a large collection of electronic and infrastructural equipment, including twenty-nine motherboards, six hundred fifty-six gigabytes of RAM, five terabytes of solid-state disks, fifty-eight CPU sockets, and two hundred ninety-six physical Intel Nehalem cores. A gallery can be found here.

Due to the flexibility afforded by the clustering concept, the exact specifications of the Rybka Cluster change on a regular basis as our team makes improvements.

Rental Protocol

Under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program, anyone can purchase time on the Rybka Cluster in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours. Customers receive client software as well as personalized account information and then use this software and account information to connect to the cluster from anywhere and at any time during their paid-for rental period. When a customer is logged in, the cluster presents itself on his client computer as a standard (UCI) chess engine, which can be installed and used in any standard chess GUI.

Features

The Rybka Cluster includes all of the standard features expected of a chess engine, such as multi-variation analysis, exclude-moves analysis, pondering, full state reset, game play supporting all possible time controls, and so on. All 4-man and 5-man tablebases as well as selected 6-man tablebases are installed.

The Rybka Cluster is also robust to the various connectivity problems which clients can experience. When a client loses his internet connection, the last analysis he requested continues to run, and when he reconnects the accumulated analysis is automatically made available to him.

Finally, the Rybka Cluster has a highly developed and fully configurable notion of draw avoidance. This is useful in computer chess tournaments, to make sure that the cluster's ultra-deep searches don't result in overly cautious moves leading to too many draws. Our clients have also found the feature useful for preparing opening variations which may be objectively equal but which yield good practical winning chances.

Policies

There are no restrictions on what a customer can do with his or her Rybka Cluster time. Customers are welcome to use the Rybka Cluster for their own private chess analysis or automated game play, or to share their Rybka Cluster time with others, either informally or for profit.

Rates

Two standard, well-tested Rybka Cluster configurations are available starting February 1, 2011:

A Rybka Cluster 40 consists of 40 physical cores and can be rented for 238 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 200 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 40 rental time is 5 days.

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

Custom configurations are also possible. Our current capacity is 296 physical cores, and this figure can be increased if necessary. Please don't hesitate to contact us about alternative possibilities if you are interested.

Confidentiality

All aspects of Rybka Cluster rentals, including any discussions with us about the matter, will be treated as confidential by our team. Only Lukas Cimiotti and Vasik Rajlich will be privy to any such information.

Contact Us

Lukas Cimiotti is responsible for both the Rybka Cluster and the Rybka Cluster Rental Program. Time reservations and payment arrangements should be made directly with him. The preferred method for contacting Lukas is via private message at the Rybka Forum, addressed to the nick "Lukas Cimiotti". Impressum is here.

Long-Term Reservations

Rybka Cluster time is rented on a first-come first-served basis. We accept reservations for up to six months into the future, and recommend that you make important reservations safely in advance to guarantee availability. Whenever we upgrade our hardware, advance reservations will automatically be upgraded to configurations of equivalent value.

Alternative Rental Possibilities

The main limitation of the Rybka Cluster Rental Program is that cluster time must be reserved in advance and in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours. ChessBase GmbH and Convekta Ltd. are now working on solutions which will allow their customers to access the Rybka Cluster at any time without advance booking on a per-minute basis. We'll provide information about these possibilities when they become available.

Additionally, cheaper Rybka Cluster configurations of less than 40 physical cores will be made available later in 2011.

Disclaimer

Time on the Rybka Cluster is offered as is. The Rybka Cluster has been extensively tested in a wide range of scenarios, but we make no warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of performance, merchantability, satisfaction, or fitness for a particular purpose.

[kingliveson]

I wish Vas and Co. success. Rybka could end up pioneering software as a service business model in computer chess. The pricing seem a little difficult to swallow for most as a current poll on the forum shows. I have mixed feelings about it and time will tell.

[BB+]

Combining software and hardware engineering, the Rybka Cluster features exclusive Rybka versions not available to the public running on customized hardware built with the specific goal of providing top Rybka performance at an affordable price.

To me, the only question is whether the Rybka software in this deal is sufficiently superior to any other out there. For most purposes (such as opening analysis on a wide variety of positions), parallelisation in a less grandiose manner would probably be a better bet. Then again, not everyone makes rational cost/benefit analyses. Also, from the publicity/marketing standpoint, I think they should have waited until smaller packages were available.

[Uly]

Well, Vas just said that he'll be happy if he gets a single (1) good customer the next month.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program, anyone can purchase time on the Rybka Cluster in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours.

Rates

Two standard, well-tested Rybka Cluster configurations are available starting February 1, 2011:

A Rybka Cluster 40 consists of 40 physical cores and can be rented for 238 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 200 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 40 rental time is 5 days.

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

Minimum rental of 1000 / 1190 euro? Good luck with that!

Jeremy

[Chris Whittington]

Under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program, anyone can purchase time on the Rybka Cluster in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours.

Rates

Two standard, well-tested Rybka Cluster configurations are available starting February 1, 2011:

A Rybka Cluster 40 consists of 40 physical cores and can be rented for 238 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 200 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 40 rental time is 5 days.

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

Minimum rental of 1000 / 1190 euro? Good luck with that!

Jeremy

I predict he will become fantastically rich to the tune of at least several millions and that he will take great pleasure in delivering a mighty and well-deserved fuck-you to the inhabitants of computer chessland

[Jeremy Bernstein]

Under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program, anyone can purchase time on the Rybka Cluster in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours.

Rates

Two standard, well-tested Rybka Cluster configurations are available starting February 1, 2011:

A Rybka Cluster 40 consists of 40 physical cores and can be rented for 238 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 200 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 40 rental time is 5 days.

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

Minimum rental of 1000 / 1190 euro? Good luck with that!

Jeremy

I predict he will become fantastically rich to the tune of at least several millions and that he will take great pleasure in delivering a mighty and well-deserved fuck-you to the inhabitants of computer chessland

A couple of sheiks and well-heeled freaks later, I'm sure he'll be doing just fine. It doesn't change the fact that he doesn't bother to support his base users with necessary bugfixes.

Jeremy

[Chris Whittington]

Under the Rybka Cluster Rental Program, anyone can purchase time on the Rybka Cluster in continuous chunks of at least 48 hours.

Rates

Two standard, well-tested Rybka Cluster configurations are available starting February 1, 2011:

A Rybka Cluster 40 consists of 40 physical cores and can be rented for 238 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 200 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 40 rental time is 5 days.

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

Minimum rental of 1000 / 1190 euro? Good luck with that!

Jeremy

I predict he will become fantastically rich to the tune of at least several millions and that he will take great pleasure in delivering a mighty and well-deserved fuck-you to the inhabitants of computer chessland

A couple of sheiks and well-heeled freaks later, I'm sure he'll be doing just fine. It doesn't change the fact that he doesn't bother to support his base users with necessary bugfixes.

Jeremy

I wager that if Vas tried to marry up the names of the talkchess users complaining about his software with sales records of purchasers, he won't find many matches.

[Jeremy Bernstein]

A couple of sheiks and well-heeled freaks later, I'm sure he'll be doing just fine. It doesn't change the fact that he doesn't bother to support his base users with necessary bugfixes.

Jeremy

I wager that if Vas tried to marry up the names of the talkchess users complaining about his software with sales records of purchasers, he won't find many matches.

That may be, but the number of rybkaforum users complaining about his software most certainly has a higher hit rate, and those "complainers", even among the rabidly loyal, aren't few. There's no excuse for releasing buggy software and then leaving a fix for 7 months later. Sorry, no matter what corner of the software business you're in, that's shitty service.

Jeremy

[JcMaTe]

A Rybka Cluster 100 consists of 100 physical cores and can be rented for 595 Euro (incl. VAT) per day, or 500 Euro (without VAT) per day for customers outside the EU or businesses outside Germany. The minimum continuous Rybka Cluster 100 rental time is 2 days.

JeJeJaJahahaha Muahhhhhahahaha

Shame on them offered a chess engine is not the best