[ale] high performance computing

[John Heim]

From: "Jeff Layton" <laytonjb at att.net>
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
> There are lots of vendors to contact (including the one I work for :)  ).
>
> Can you say a little more about the application? 2D FFT's? 3D FFT's?
> Is the code parallelized via MPI or OpenMP or both? Is the code written
> with CUDA? How many cores or processes are used per run?
>
> Does he need to write additional code? Which compilers do they
> use or like?

I'm pretty sure the PI  hasn't written much of the code yet.  He's working 
with someone who's previous work was done on an SGI Altix running suse 
linux. I would assume that the two of them are working on an extension of 
the second guy's previous work.   Actually, the second guy is a gal.  Not 
that it matters but I think she'd appreciate being referred to as a she even 
on an anonymous email list.

Anyway, the PI mentioned MPI in a meeting so I guess that's it. I never 
heard of CUDA until this moment. I'll have to ask him about that.  I know 
he's writing C++ but I don't know which compiler he is using. If I had to 
guess, I'd say Intel's. But I doubt anybody around here besides me knows how 
to install that and I know I didn't install it on that suse box.

>
> How large are the input/output files?

I'm going to say they are pretty small.  They haven't said anything about 
needing lots of space. I posted here a few weeks ago about setting up a 
distributed network file system. We have a pilot project going with a 300Gb 
glusterfs system. Assuming the PI using the pilot system likes it, I intend 
to do a 1Tb - 2Tb glusterfs depending on how many machines I can pull in.  I 
have to do a re-install to re-partition the drives. Anyway, when I told them 
about the DNFS, they didn't seem impressed.  So I am thinking it doesn't 
apply to their work.


> Thanks!

As trite as it is... No, thank you.
>
> Jeff
>
>