Your SC08 Proxy

Since corporate travel is becoming very tight in the current economic climate, This InTech Blogger will be attending the SC08 Super Computing Conference in Austin as your proxy from Nov 17-21. Check out the program and exhibit listings and comment here if you have specific requests for more information, reports from the field or are just generally curious. Be watching here during the conference for daily blog updates about news, announcements and general de-bunking. If you are also going to be attending the conference, be sure to comment here or else email me directly so that we can be sure to cross paths in person.

HPC in a box

Has your business been avoiding HPC because you lack the expert knowledge to install and maintain clusters? Have you been itching to run simulations and gain some competitive edge, but the world of job schedulers, mpi and other "standard" HPC methods was a new world of pain and confusion? A new solution may be on your horizon. this week Velocity Micro announced a new line of Visual Supercomputer workstations. With the power of a small supercomputer in a single box, preloaded with NVIDIA hardware and software, this is a turnkey solution without clustering, grids or other complex HPC elements. With pricing that looks to range from 1500$ to 6000$ and compute power that ranges up above 3 teraflops, this little boxes will suit many small to mid size business needs without breaking the bank. I am thinking of putting one on my Christmas list, so if you get one and have a review or comments, please speak up here.

Real Life Simulation Pitfalls in the data center

One of the current trends in simulation software is to use CFD fluid dynamics models to model heat dynamics in computer data centers. In the era of pushing for cost savings in every corner, being able to lower the cooling bill for your computer room is an easy sell to management. But be careful that the simulations that you use are based on actual measurements taken by someone crawling around the data center and not just averages built in to the program, or you will likely not be able to deliver on the savings you promised management. Kenneth Bill at Forbes.com reminds us that simulations must be grounded with real life measurements in this good article.