Well I’m happy to say that today I got the Request For Proposals (RFPs) out of the door for the proposed replacement of VPACs ageing Linux cluster Brecca (180 cores of 2.8GHz Intel Pentium 4 Xeon) and a significant amount of additional storage. Needless to say the new cluster must run Linux!
Please see the announcement on the VPAC systems blog for more information and copies of the RFPs.
This has been keeping my very busy recently and so I’m looking forward to a nice quiet break over Easter!
XmdS looks like an interesting package:
XMDS is a code generator that integrates equations. You write them down in human readable form in an XML file, and it goes away and writes and compiles a C++ program that integrates those equations as fast as it can possibly be done in your architecture.
Personally I thought it might be drawing a long bow to call XML “human readable”, but some of the examples aren’t too bad at all.
RMIT came back online at around 09:30, hopefully it will last!
VPAC systems are unreachable from the outside world as it appears that all RMIT networks failed at around 8am.
This means that the Linux Users of Victoria (LUV) server is also down as it is hosted at VPAC, so no LUV email or website for the moment.
The systems themselves are still functioning normally, just needs the RMIT ITS networks folks to track down the problem and fix it (good luck people!).
To quote Eugen Leitl on the Beowulf list..
Apropos of Cell, I presume most of you have seen http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/
Shame Cell isn’t very good at double precision floating point..
I’ve got a friend, to protect his identity we’ll just call him “Mike“, who’s currently touring China and Mongolia for a month. Well it looks like even he couldn’t resist the call of the Internet, so I got this last night and it’s posted with his permission:
Hi from a dodgey internet cafe in Ulaanbaatar.
A land of slow internet connections and suspicious meat dishes. The landscape is rather amazing, – loads of open grasslands and blue sky, somewhat reminiscent of the the windows default backdrop. Only add more horses, goats, yaks, eagles and gers.
Managed to get caught in a terrific storm yesterday, minutes after pitching a tent on a sand dune ridge. Apart from the tent nearly blowing away, the best part was being pinned on the ridge and then it starting to strike lightning.Nothing like sitting under a shell of aluminum poles with bolts flying overhead. My other career after scientist when I was a kid was going to be a orchestra conductor and it look like for an ironic moment that I might fullfil at least half of that. Luckily after an hour or so the storm passed to reveal one of the best sunsets ever.
More dodgey roads to condend with later this week where I hope to get to some other park and try my luck again with the tent.
Anyhow, painfully slow connections. Take care back there,
I’m starting to like the taste of mutton which seems to taint every meal that you order. See if the can make a special dish at the curry place.