Free HPC Cluster to a Good Home

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Interested in getting your hands on some serious system hardware for absolutely free?

Is your organization a US- or Canada-based academic or government lab, or some other non-profit research institution? (We’re talking about an intentionally non-profit organization, not just a badly managed business research firm.)

Do you have a long list of good work you’d like to perform but  simply don’t have the computer power to pull it off?

If you answered yes to the questions above, then you need to apply for the Silicon Mechanics 2nd Annual Research Cluster Grant.

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SC12 Cluster Smackdown Award Awarded; Hook ‘em Horns!

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The 2012 Student Cluster Competition (SCC) is in the books and we have all of the results, right here, right now. First, as was released earlier, China’s Team NUDT ran away with the Highest LINPACK Award, an SCC record 3.014 Teraflop/s score. Their compatriots, Team USTC, locked in second place with 2.793 Teraflops/s, and the Texas Longhorns nabbed third with their 2.488 score.

Organizers piloted a new SCC division this year, the LittleFe competition (or ‘Mini Iron’), where student teams used identical six-node LittleFe systems to come up with the best solution to a 10,000-city Traveling Salesman problem. This competition attracted three university teams and one local Salt Lake City high school team all looking to become the first ever winner of the ‘Mini Iron Melee Cup’. (There isn’t an actual cup… yet.)

 

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SC12: Utah Wins LittleFe; “Didja hear the one about the traveling salesman?”

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Until this year, the annual SC Student Cluster Competition focused entirely on seeing how much work teams of university students could wring out of 26 amps of juice. They can use any hardware/software combination that will run the required apps; the only limitation is that their configuration has to be shipping by the time of the show. (For an overview, click here.)

At SC12, organizers introduced a new cluster competition that ran alongside the traditional ‘Big Iron’ battle. This new ‘Mini Iron’ track provides student teams with identical LittleFe six-node Atom-based ‘clusters in a box’. Three university teams and a team from a local Salt Lake City high school were challenged to find the best solution to the “Traveling Salesman Problem.”

Team Utah (representing hometown University of Utah) ended up winning the LittleFe competition, so congratulations to the Running Utes. (Or is it “Runnin’ Utes?”) They also prepared a couple of posters that explain the challenges they faced in the competition. The first poster (below) does a great job of laying out the Traveling Salesman problem and their initial approach to solving it. I use the word ‘initial’ because it wasn’t the solution they ended up using for the whole competition.

{pdf=http://gabrielconsultinggroup.com/images/PDF_files/utah poster 1.pdf|600|400}

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SC12 Big Iron: Final Team Interviews

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The last day of the Student Cluster Competition (SCC) at SC12 in Salt Lake City brought a range of emotions and activities. The one common denominator: Everyone was waiting. The final results had been turned in the night before, and there was nothing left to do but wait for the awards ceremony, when each participant would hear the name of his/her team called… or not.

‘Read more’ for videos and the students’ final thoughts, and raise your coffee mug (or Red Bull can) in salute to their months of hard work and dedication.

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LittleFe dataset SC12

SC12 LittleFe: High-schoolers have one shining moment; College kids tolerate interview (barely)

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The SC Student Cluster Competition (SCC)has seen university teams from around the world vying to prove their cluster competence. But this year has been marked by a number of firsts, including the first team composed entirely of high school students. The Skyline High School Eagles, located in Salt Lake City, entered the LittleFe Division of the SCC and competed against three teams of older and more experienced university students.

Over the course of this two-day marathon competition, the teams had to solve a 10,000-city Traveling Salesman problem. In this problem, the teams are given data sets containing 10,000 locations (or cities) and the distance between each. The task is to figure out a route that visits each city only once while minimizing distance traveled, and returns the salesman to his starting location.

Teams received points for the amount of time they were ahead of the others in computing the best solution for each data set. New data sets were released every few hours, giving competitors a fresh problem to attack and the potential to make a game-changing breakthrough.

While some of the data sets were random or semi-random 3D clouds, SCC Co-Chair Peter Molnar mixed it up by adding some unique twists and turns. Here are a few examples of his most creative efforts:

‘Read more’ to see the Skyline kids’ reactions as they watch their system pull ahead… and to see Slippery Rock’s last interview.

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2012 LINPACK Results

SC12: Team NUDT Takes LINPACK! New Benchmark Record Set

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Salt Lake City is abuzz with the news that China’s NUDT team has once again snared the LINPACK crown at a student cluster competition. Their record-breaking score of 3.014 TFLOP/s topped their competitors and marked the first time a student cluster team has broken through the 3 TFLOP/s barrier.

This is the second LINPACK win in less than a year for NUDT – they took this award at the ISC’12 competition in Hamburg as well. Teams from China took both of the top slots, followed by Team Longhorn at 2.488 TFLOP/s.

Student clustering buffs might remember that Team Longhorn was one of the first teams to achieve a TFLOP in the 2010 competition in New Orleans, so it’s not surprising to see them in the top echelon here.

I was surprised to see Team Venus land the number four spot, beating out more experienced competitors. It’s a great result given their relative inexperience with HPC and clustering in general. Team Taiwan and Team Boilermaker hold down the fifth and sixth slots. I suspect that we’re seeing some strategy at work here.

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