More high-profile projects
And, hot on the heels of the Duke project, I've seen several posts on other projects which I've recently finished:
- Virginia Tech - "System X" was ranked as the 3rd-fastest supercomputer in the world, built for approximately one-tenth the cost of the next-faster system. I put together the custom software load for these units, as they transitioned from standard Power Mac G5s, to 1100 (!) dual-processor Xserve G5s. The goal was to have these systems able to be brought up immediately after installation, with no further user interaction required. So, I installed a custom set of software for them, defined users on those systems, configured multiple services to be started in the background, and preconfigured their network settings - all as the systems shipped from the factory. They took the units out of the box, plugged them in, and were able to automatically access them and link them together into the distributed computing environment they needed from remote terminals.
See Apple's web page on Virginia Tech for more details.OH - and I also found a story on exactly what units the System X cluster ended up with ;-)
- COLSA - an even larger supercomputing cluster, used for hypersonic flight modeling. Similar to Virginia Tech, they wanted 1,566 (!!) dual-processor Xserve G5s, and I put together the custom software load for these, as well. At its peak, this supercluster can exceed 25 teraflops (!!!). Again, custom user definition, custom software loads, etc. - but these also contained a custom startupitem which I wrote, as well as several Apple Software Updates beyond the standard retail load which usually ships on these units.
Again, see Apple's web page on COLSA for more details.
Overall, it's kinda fun to work on these new initiatives, and I'm happy to be able to contribute in my own way to their success.Archives
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