In Graphics: Supercomputing Superpowers • Hacker News Board

Re: In Graphics: Supercomputing Superpowers

#21

Post by mattds » Mon, May 31, 2010, 8:00 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #16

Keyframe wrote: post #3

I just watched this the other day - 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.

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.

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 :-)

Re: In Graphics: Supercomputing Superpowers

#22

Post by Keyframe » Mon, May 31, 2010, 8:35 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #16

Keyframe wrote: post #3

I just watched this the other day - 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.

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.

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.

Re: In Graphics: Supercomputing Superpowers

#23

Post by SandB0x » Mon, May 31, 2010, 11:47 PM UTC

scorchin wrote: post #8

SandB0x wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_novo_protein_structure_predi...

How does that relate to finance? I know that protein folding involves massive computation, as it was what our university cluster was being used for 40% of the time.

Sorry, for some reason I only read the first and last sentences of your post. Maybe they are used for economic forecasting by governments?