Purdue Plans a 1-Day Supercomputer "Barnraising" 97
An anonymous reader points out an article which says that "Purdue University says it will only need one day to install the largest supercomputer on a Big Ten campus. The so-called 'electronic barn-raising' will take place May 5 and involved more than 200 employees. The computer will be about the size of a semi trailer. Vice President for Information Technology at Purdue Gerry McCartney says it will be built in a single day to keep science and engineering researchers from facing a lengthy downtime."
Another anonymous reader adds "To generate interest on campus, the organizers created a spoof movie trailer called 'Installation Day.'"
Amish (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen the websites where the Amish organise barn-raising parties. It's quite impressive. The womenfolk make sandwiches and other light meals, while the menfolk completely construct and assemble the parts to make a three or four floor structure. Presumably they can construct a house in the same amount of time?
Re: (Score:2)
Amish use websites? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Amish Barn-Raising [amishphoto.com]
A discussion [ittoolbox.com]
I'm amazed that so many people can be coordinated in such a confined space. There's a new building being built on my local campus. At most there are never more than 10 workmen on site at any time, and even then, they are always working in separate areas, operating machinery (elevators, cranes, clamps for plate glass).
Re: (Score:2)
This site is written in fucking PERL for christ's sake.
It's a wonder that it ever works.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Abe is the biggest cluster on a BigTen campus (Score:2)
The article lists BigRed at Indiana (#43 on Top500) based on a technicality. But even the technicality is incorrect. The ABE cluster at NCSA@UIUC (#14 on Top500) is literally on the UIUC campus.
I doubt the Purdue one will beat Abe on the Top500 list.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Not Funny (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
pfft... ever hear of mopery? (Score:2)
turn in yer nerd ID please....
if the crime has a name, someone thought of it....
Re: (Score:2)
Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like poor planning to me. The correct way to keep science and engineering researchers from facing a lengthy downtime: don't turn off the old computer until the new one is running and tested.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Chill out - in this case, it's easier than any other options. Plus it got them on Slashdot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If they're not out of physical space then they could have built the cabinets ahead of time, powered them up one at a time to verify correct cabling, hardware operation and software installation and then rolled them off into a corner. On the cutover day you'd then
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it does. You're supposed to have about a 20% reserve slack on space and power cabling, and the "+1" of n+1 reserve for battery, hvac and generator systems. That covers instant failures of those systems, but it also covers maneuvering room when its time to upgrade.
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming that the new supercomputer has the same space needs as the one it's replacing, what you're telling us is that any machine room running at more than 50% volumetric capacity is oversubscribed. I can't agree with that.
Re: (Score:1)
Skip the raised floor and other stuff that isn't critical, shop carefully and buy the battery system used and you can put it together for well under $100k.
The cost of the additional building power transformers and switchgear *alone* would cost well over $100k, for the amount of power necessary. Add to that at least 85 tons of air conditioning necessary to cool the cluster (assuming 100% effiency, and no redundancy). At about $40k for each 30ton Liebert chilled/potable water DX unit, that's another $120k...
Also, if you think that we can afford to put either a UPS or generator backup under this whole mess, you don't seem to understand what kind of minimal fu
Re: (Score:2)
85 tons? So you're budgeting 350 watts of actual (not max or rated) draw per node plus an extra 15kw overhead? That sounds a little high to me.
Even if you're right on target, it's all in the shopping. If you go brand new, top of the line Lieberts, raised floor and all the frills you'll chew through half a mil easy. On the other hand, I once bought a nice redundant 3+3 ton data center A/C unit for $50 at auction. Datacenter A/C units sell for dirt at auctions b
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds to me like you've never had to upgrade servers in an already overloaded data center.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure I have. I solved the problem by moving to a data center that wasn't overloaded.
When you're installing that expensive a piece of hardware, you don't try to fit it to the environment; you fit the environment to it.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
No thanks. I was in my element at the DNC, but university politics are deadly.
Re: (Score:1)
With the 1 week downtime, we were able to clean out
Thin on details (Score:2, Interesting)
If they don't tell us what they're using, how can we have flame wars over whose technology really should have been used in it? We'll be stuck with nothing to do but make up bad car analogies.
It would be like, "GM is announcing a barnraising
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, what's the footnote on your "no silver bullet" line?
Re: (Score:2)
The footnote I'd intended to put in was "There are, however, several file systems that do everything poorly", but I figured I'd be in trouble with several vendors if I gave specific examples...
Re: (Score:2)
Well users of the supercomputer need somewhere to keep files that their jobs on the supercomputer will need to access. Sure you could use the users central campus home directories but that is likely to be bad for performance and may also cause other issues (for example some universities are pretty tight when it comes to quotas for central storage).
Re: (Score:2)
I'm suggesting that the NFS solution may well work for central campus home directories, but looks like it would not work well at all for the kinds of files you'd be dealing with on a supercomputer.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks for the info, all of you. Enjoy your new toy. How's it running so far?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Hey editors (Score:1)
Either the date or the tense is wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which one of you fuckers if fake-lifting?!?
Re: (Score:1)
Oblig. Simpsons (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Actually, since the referenced line is to the effect of, "'Tis a fine barn, English, but 'tis no pool." the line should read:
"'Tis a fine barn, English, but 'tis no supercomputer."
(/nitpick)
Re: (Score:2)
SySadmin + Cinco de Miyo = Bad News (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's really big in TX, NM, AZ, and CA. Here in Texas, it's a pretty big deal--but mostly for the Tex-Mex restaurants and the cultural nazis.
Gringos usually celebrate by eating "Mexican" food (i.e., something with chee
Moderation broken? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Downtime (Score:2)
Just imangine (Score:1)
Grammar Nazi says: (Score:2, Insightful)
Which raises the question... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Loose defenition (Score:1)
Time off from my normal duties. (Score:1)
Having installed Supercomputers... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
We used to do that over weekends in very large installations but it was scary every time. Too many things which could have go