HPC for Primates http://www.clustermonkey.net/ 2008-07-04T20:51:00+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//images/M_images/joomla_rss.png text/html 2008-06-26T10:13:54+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/231/2/ Time to buy that new lunch box The Georgetown University Advanced Research Computing (http://arc.georgetown.edu/) (ARC) has updated the training schedule (http://www.gridswatch.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=16). In case you hvae not noticed, the ARC division has created a certification program for computer systems administrators wanting to advance in the field of high performance and high throughput computing. The Systems Administration Certification program consists of two required courses and a series of 1-3 day elective courses. The four-day Introduction to High Performance Computing is the required entry point to the program. Students with strong UNIX/Linux administration skills will complete this course able to plan, design, build, benchmark, and administer a Beowulf cluster. The current schedule is as follows: text/html 2008-06-19T16:52:20+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/230/2/ I call it a PCU not a GPGPU In case you have been hard at work on your latest breakthrough, there has been some news on the GPU processing front. What is GPU processing and why should I care you ask? The idea is rather interesting. Drawing pixels on screens is a parallel problem. Video card manufactures have taken advantage of this by placing many parallel graphics processors on their video chips. Current generation video chips now use General Purpose (GP) processors for this task. The "general purpose" feature means that graphics hardware can be now be used for parallel (predictable) computing problems. (i.e. an array multiplication is a predictable operation). You can find more background by consulting the article Pixels to PetaFLOPS: How GPUs are Pushing the HPC Envelope (http://www.linux-mag.com/id/3533) and GPGPU.org (http://www.gpgpu.org/) (General Purpose Graphical Processing Units). By the way, that is too many G's and P's for me. I like to think of it as heterogeneous computing or simply a Parallel Computing Unit (PCU). As an HPC geek, I like to think of it as PCU that can also do video, but in reality it is the other way around. We have the gamers to thank. So a big thank-you to those useless gamer types that everybody complains about. Keep playing (and buying) games and hardware. You are helping to subsidize the cure for all the ailments you will suffer from not going outside in your youth. text/html 2008-06-16T16:37:11+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/229/2/ If you live or work in the New York/North Jersey Metropolitan area, mark your calender for Thursday June 19th. The NYCA-HUG (http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4140) (New York City Area HPC Users Group) will be trying to answer the ultimate question Torque (http://www.clusterresources.com/pages/products/torque-resource-manager.php) or Sun Grid Engine (http://gridengine.sunsource.net/)? We will be discussing the pros/cons of each scheduler for HPC clusters. Come and add your experiences, wants, and rants. Then you decide. This month we will be meeting in New Jersey at Tumulty's Pub (http://www.restaurantpassion.com/listing.aspx?a=245&sid=8&sn=NJ) in New Brunswick (Google Map (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=361+George+Street,+New+Brunswick,+NJ+08901&sll=40.661346,-75.396542&sspn=0.007113,0.013304&ie=UTF8&ll=40.496684,-74.443831&spn=0.007131,0.013304&z=16)) The Pub is also located near the New Brunswick train station. (directions (http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=1+Railroad+Plaza,+New+Brunswick,+NJ+08901&geocode=&dirflg=&daddr=361+george+St,+New+Brunswick,+NJ&f=d&sll=40.496407,-74.446127&sspn=0.010818,0.016501&ie=UTF8&z=18)) Look for a NYCA-HUG sign or bunch of cluster geek types. Meeting runs from 7-9PM. text/html 2008-05-27T14:26:37+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/228/2/ Over the past year or two, I have been slowly creating a large set of Open MPI training material that I've used to present to my company's customers and partners. I have just recently received permission to release video presentations (http://www.open-mpi.org/video/) of all of my slides to the greater HPC community. Woo hoo! text/html 2008-05-27T13:00:53+01:00 http://www.clustermonkey.net/ http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/227/2/ Attending ISC (http://www.supercomp.de/isc08/content/?gclid=CL3jlOuRx5MCFQx2GgodVnKuDQ) in Dresden, Germany? Want to learn about CUDA (http://www.gpgpu.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/2006/11/09)? Don't know what all the acronyms mean? Then maybe you should attend the Free Tutorial: Tutorial on High Performance Computing with CUDA™ sponsored by NVIDIA® on June 16 (the day before the International Supercomputing Conference). Conveniently held at the Convention Center Dresden, Germany Monday, June 16, 2008 from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Learn about its advanced uses in science and engineering, and hear case studies from academic and industrial researchers. You need to register (http://www.nvidia.com/content/event_registration/2008/cuda_training/cuda_training_16-06-08/invite.html) in advance. The tutorial is free of charge. Note: This event is being held before ISC begins and as such is not affiliated with the ISC conference. Attendees do not need to register for the conference.