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Content about cluster computing

February 29, 2012
Seven innovative ways to cool a scientific computer

As computer chips get smaller and faster, they’re getting hotter and hotter. Typically, almost 40% of a data center’s electricity bill is because of its cooling equipment.

To help reach the exaflop barrier and beyond, some data centers are investing in better cooling than current standard technology. We’ve taken a look at seven promising methods that will help scientific e-infrastructures stay cool.

February 15, 2012
Placing a price-tag on e-infrastructure

As funders consider how to best invest in the future of e-infrastructure, a number of questions arise: How much does e-infrastructure cost? How much impact does it have, and are funders getting value for their money? A number of projects are working to find concrete answers to these and other questions, at a time when getting an accurate price has never been more crucial to a sustainable future for scientific computing.

December 21, 2011
The Tevatron's enduring computing legacy

Few laypeople think of computing innovation in connection with the Tevatron particle accelerator, which shut down earlier this year. Mention of the Tevatron inspires images of majestic machinery, or thoughts of immense energies and groundbreaking physics research, not circuit boards, hardware, networks, and software.

Yet over the course of more than three decades of planning and operation, a tremendous amount of computing innovation was necessary to keep the data flowing and physics results coming. Those innovations will continue to influence scientific computing and data analysis for years to come.

November 16, 2011
Rationalizing riots

No, it's not the latest computer game, but new academic simulations to model potentially chaotic public disorder scenarios.

October 19, 2011
A small Sun on Earth

The quest to produce power from fusion is back on track after the test-bed reactor JET restarted successfully. But some serious challenges, which require heavy computing, still lie on the scientists' path between here and realising their dream.

Scientists are installing extremely sensitive infra-red cameras to find tiny hot-spots in the walls of the container, which might show why and where energy is lost. And they must also tackle one of the most important unsolved problems of classical physics: turbulance.

September 14, 2011
Rack-a-Node to play and learn

To some, Purdue's Rack-a-Node game is old news. To others, like our US Editor, Miriam Boon, it's a new addiction.