Cluster Challenge at SC08: The Tour de France of HPC

Update Friday, 21 November 2008: THE JOINT INDIANA-DRESDEN CLUSTERMEISTERS TEAM (pictured above) WINS!

Will last year’s winners hold their title?

The Tour de France of high performance computing for undergraduates kicked off this past Monday—the second annual Cluster Challenge at SC08. Until 4:00 Wednesday afternoon, seven teams comprised of some of the best young minds in computational science are working around-the-clock. They’re building HPC clusters on the exhibit floor, limited to using hardware that fits into a single rack powered by two 120-volt, 13-amp circuits. They’re running real-world scientific applications, attempting to process as much data as possible—at least more than their competitors—to win.

The endurance competition showcases the power of cluster computing and the ability to harness open source software to solve important problems.

“Cluster computing has arrived and is now an important part of computing science curriculums at leading universities,” said Brent Gorda, Deputy for Advanced Technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and originator of the competition. “The participants are the future rock stars of HPC. By showcasing the work of these students we are seeding the computing community with new talent.”

Students from the University of Canada in Alberta are returning this year to defend their title. Last year’s competition was intense and full of drama including a power outage in the Reno, Nevada convention center.

Read more and watch a video

Feature - CANARIE

Zero-carbon data centers

Information and communication technology, the fifth largest consumer of power in the world, currently contributes 3-4% of the world’s CO₂ emissions — and is doubling every three to four years. To reduce its carbon footprint, the ICT industry has started relocating computing facilities to renewable-energy zero-carbon data centers.

Profile - WLCG in Taiwan

People behind the grid:
Simon Lin

A physicist educated and inspired by Peter Higgs and Dave Wallace in Edinburgh, Simon Lin developed a keen interest in computing for physics. Director of the computing center at Academia Sinica and leader of EGEE’s Asian federation, he's brought this institution into the WLCG as the first Asian Tier-1 center.

Link of the week Straight from the horse’s mouth: GridCast from Austin “My posts on this blog will try to give an exhibitor’s eye view of the (SC08) conference, so I have my camera with me and will keep my Flickr updated with pictures from the floor (tagged Supercomputing08),” blogs GridCast’s Neasan O’Neill, of GridPP and EGEE. Read more				Images of the week Scenes from the SC08 exhibition hall in Austin We highlight some of the creative booths from the national labs studded among the international vendors and universities. Read more