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Meet the Stampede Supercomputing Cluster's Administrator (Video)

Posted by timothy on from the them's-blinkenlights-y'all dept.

UT Austin tends not to do things by half measures, as illustrated by the Texas Advanced Computing Center, which has been home to an evolving family of supercomputing clusters. The latest of these, Stampede, was first mentioned here back in 2011, before it was actually constructed. In the time since, Stampede has been not only completed, but upgraded; it's just successfully completed a successful six months since its last major update — the labor-intensive installation of Xeon Phi processors throughout 106 densely packed racks. I visited TACC, camera in hand, to take a look at this megawatt-eating electronic hive (well, herd) and talk with director of high-performance computing Bill Barth, who has insight into what it's like both as an end-user (both commercial and academic projects get to use Stampede) and as an administrator on such a big system.

34 comments

  1. Hive? herd? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Don't beowulves travel in packs?

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:Hive? herd? by Alpha232 · · Score: 1

      UT / Longhorns....

    2. Re:Hive? herd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you mean HURD?

    3. Re:Hive? herd? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      I assume that these are boxxen, those travel in packs.

    4. Re:Hive? herd? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't beowulves travel in packs?

      No, they clearly travel in clusters..

  2. He should start a bang called ZZ-Flops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shes got megs.....
    Knows how to use them
    She never lags
    Knows how to queue them

    1. Re:He should start a bang called ZZ-Flops by istartedi · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up. I can't think of a better ZZ parody for this, and I'm usually pretty good at that kind of thing...

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    2. Re:He should start a bang called ZZ-Flops by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      #Corrections "He should start a bang called ZZ-Flops"(sic) band not bang

  3. Success! by Major+Ralph · · Score: 1

    I successfully complete successful things every day

    --
    I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
  4. Dat beard... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can sleep easy when your *nix sysadmin has a beard like that. That's a beard you can trust.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Dat beard... by Charliemopps · · Score: 1, Funny

      Being someone with a crazy beard myself, all I can say is... I'm sorry, both your mom and your wife like it and think it tickles. You don't really want me to disappoint them do you?

    2. Re:Dat beard... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      I have a wife now? 8-(

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    3. Re:Dat beard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has to be one of the most insightful comments in years. I apologize for the fuckwits that modded you down.

    4. Re:Dat beard... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      You can sleep easy when your *nix sysadmin has a beard like that. That's a beard you can trust.

      I'm pretty sure that beard isn't merely trustworthy; but actually capable of handling routine shell scripting tasks independently of the head it is attached to.

    5. Re:Dat beard... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also, Texas is a shitty state full of dumbshit intolerant retards.

      Austin may act like it is not part of Texas at times, but they still haven't been officially kicked out or seceded yet.

    6. Re:Dat beard... by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      and a mother ;-)

    7. Re:Dat beard... by slickepott · · Score: 1

      My first thought just starting the movie and still not having read anything about it was: Must be about UNIX.

      Soon I'll see if I'm right. :)

    8. Re:Dat beard... by aralin · · Score: 2

      Actually, that beard is an uptime indicator. It is little known that sysadmins have to shave when their server goes down. That is also why unix admins have them and windows admins don't.

      --
      If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
    9. Re:Dat beard... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Are VMS and mainframe admins allowed to shave even if the system hasn't gone down, or do you eventually have to replace them when their beards engulf and devour them?

  5. small thumbnail picture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hate the thumbnail, this is /. for crooks height.

  6. Volume by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It would be nice to have the interviewer a bit louder.

  7. Quality of these Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Somebody at Slashdot needs to take a community college course in video production or something. The quality of these videos is just embarassing. Bad framing. Bad audio. People talking that you can't see. No editing. Just really bad production quality for an allegedly professional attempt.

    1. Re:Quality of these Videos by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I disagree. Don't fret on the editing! This video was great! Please make more like this!!!

  8. When it is time to decommission.... by Dareth · · Score: 1

    When it is time to decommission....will they throw the cluster off a cliff?

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  9. What's with the terrible video?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could've taken this video hand-held with my iPhone and *edit* it with iMovie on that iPhone and it would've looked far better than this video.

    The speaker actually stops, pauses and corrects himself for the benefit of the interviewer/editor but that does not seem to mean anything to video producer. Oh wait there isn't one, cuz if there was it wouldn't suck this bad.

    Come on, this is slashdot - funded by a for profit organization. Even amateur videographers produce better quality videos without real funding.

  10. blinkenlights - i has dem by asserted · · Score: 1

    relaxen und watchen der blinkenlights.

    1. Re:blinkenlights - i has dem by PPH · · Score: 1

      I could have sworn the blue lights on one blade is flashing Morse code, "HELP ME. I WANT O PLAY HALO 4."

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  11. hmm video not html5 compatible? by bigmammoth · · Score: 1

    Was browsing on my nexus 7 android chrome browser, surprised to see the video not load. Figured the whole HTML5 thing had caught on by now ;) Full Disclosure; I work with a competing html5 supporting OVP ( kaltura ) but still annoying I have to hunt down a browser with flash :-|

  12. Video Lenght by Penumbra · · Score: 1

    17:01... just sayin'.

  13. Babe @6:35 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nice...