14 DAY TRIAL // When Sony put out a recent firmware update that removed the Other OS ability of the PlayStation 3 home gaming console, it certainly did not think about how this move could impact the United States Air Force. But it seems its researchers are not happy after the Sony action made it more difficult for them to run a supercomputer built around the PS3 console.
Back in 2009, the Air Force Research Laboratory headquartered in Rome, New York bought no less than 336 PlayStation 3 devices and put together a processing cluster, which could process 53 teraFLOP, mostly because of the raw processing power of the Cell processor. With its success, a contract was awarded for another 1,700 consoles, which could be used to create an even more powerful supercomputer. And the recent 3.20 firmware update is a threat to that project.
Ars Technica contacted the Airforce lab, which used the PlayStation 3 cluster, and was told that: “We will have to continue to use the systems we already have in hand. This will make it difficult to replace systems that break or fail. The refurbished PS3s also have the problem that when they come back from Sony, they have the firmware (gameOS) and it will not allow Other OS, which seems wrong. We are aware of class-action lawsuits against Sony for taking away this option on systems that use to have it.”
With the PlayStation 3 consoles now clustered and not needing any updates, it will be smooth running for the Air Force until they need to replace one. It could be that after a few years of constant and tough use, the size and efficiency of the PS3 supercomputer will shrink.
There's a pretty clear public relations opportunity for Sony here, the company being able to step in and offer non-updated PlayStation 3 devices to the Air Force. It would be a small comfort to all the regular users who cannot run Linux on their machines now but could prove an image boost for the manufacturer.