5 ms·

I just watched this the other day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU Cray-1 Supercomputer 30th Anniversary.

I just watched this the other day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU Cray-1 Supercomputer 30th Anniversary. I would give up my career and turn it around if given a chance to work in HPC.

hugh3 16y ago
What part of HPC would you like to work in? I have some contact with various HPC facilities but have never envied the people who work there -- they're just sysadmins who happen to work in larger, noisier server rooms than most.
- mattds 16y ago
  Well, I'm just one of those sysadmins (but the clusters on which I work are much more smaller than the 'monsters' in the top500). I don't know if someone could envy me but there are surely other things apart the noise of HVAC systems (by the way we are using remote console when possible :-)). How about working with a lot of different computer nodes combining them with a fast network (Infiniband) and exporting the storage space through the cluster with a parallel file system? How about optimizing every aspect of the software installation (OS, compilers, scientific libraries) to give your users the best resources to run their simulations (biophysicist, electrical engineers, etc.)? To not to mention follow the aspects regarding the structure of the data center: cooling systems, UPS, raised floors, etc.? It doesn't sound too bad to me :-)
- Keyframe 16y ago
  Thanks, but I doubt I will ever be so lucky, especially considering even if I did have an opportunity I'd probably lack in experience needed for such a job. Anyways, while fantasizing, my dream job would be to work in r&d on building those HPC machines (software and system wise, algos especially, not EE), or writing/optimizing code that runs on them, especially vector processing units. My area of interest is graphics research.

5 ms·

I just watched this the other day - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kobkqAicU Cray-1 Supercomputer 30th Anniversary.

by Keyframe 16y ago

hugh3 16y ago
What part of HPC would you like to work in? I have some contact with various HPC facilities but have never envied the people who work there -- they're just sysadmins who happen to work in larger, noisier server rooms than most.
- mattds 16y ago
  Well, I'm just one of those sysadmins (but the clusters on which I work are much more smaller than the 'monsters' in the top500). I don't know if someone could envy me but there are surely other things apart the noise of HVAC systems (by the way we are using remote console when possible :-)). How about working with a lot of different computer nodes combining them with a fast network (Infiniband) and exporting the storage space through the cluster with a parallel file system? How about optimizing every aspect of the software installation (OS, compilers, scientific libraries) to give your users the best resources to run their simulations (biophysicist, electrical engineers, etc.)? To not to mention follow the aspects regarding the structure of the data center: cooling systems, UPS, raised floors, etc.? It doesn't sound too bad to me :-)
- Keyframe 16y ago
  Thanks, but I doubt I will ever be so lucky, especially considering even if I did have an opportunity I'd probably lack in experience needed for such a job. Anyways, while fantasizing, my dream job would be to work in r&d on building those HPC machines (software and system wise, algos especially, not EE), or writing/optimizing code that runs on them, especially vector processing units. My area of interest is graphics research.