Christmas Gifts Podcast Part 2 of 3

In Part 2 of this special Holiday podcast, Rich and Dan discuss the perfect Christmas gift for Henry, a man who some consider to be wound a little too tightly at times. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Christmas Gifts Podcast Part 1 of 3

In Part 1 of this special Holiday podcast, Dan and Henry discuss the perfect Christmas gift for Rich, who is a bit of an Apple enthusiast. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Radio Free HPC Reviews the SC12 Student Cluster Competition

In this wrap-up review of SC12, the Radio Free HPC team discusses the Student Cluster Competition, covering the teams, results, and a discussion of how the competition has evolved over the years and where it should go in the future. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

SC12 Review - Intel Pumps Xeon Phi Coprocessor

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team is still talking about the recently concluded SC12 conference in Salt Lake City. The conversation starts with a short review of Thanksgiving dinner (including disgusting eating noises added in at no additional charge) before moving on to more weighty topics. The topic? Intel's formal introduction of their Xeon Phi coprocessor, including some performance and price information. Rich and Henry think that Intel has a strong hand with Phi, but Dan isn't so sure... Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Radio Free HPC Looks at the Chink in TOP500 Armor

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team quits griping about the horrible WiFi at SC12 and moves on to a truly big issue: Are LINPACK and HPCC benchmarks useful? Should they be constantly re-evaluated? And shouldn’t you really test machines on the kinds of workloads they’re designed to run?

The catalyst for this discussion is the Blue Waters system, for which no LINPACK numbers have been submitted. Yes, it’s behind schedule, and sure, they’re busy doing the science… but is it also a shot across the bow? Are they rebelling against industry philosophy? If they are, that’s a good thing, according to Henry – because a system is about what you plan to do with it, not how many flops you can get out of it. Rich agrees: if you get a giant LINPACK number on a system that has reliability issues, and you can’t output real science because all your time and money is invested in brute computation, what good is it? And the industry sectors doing meaningful work – where are their systems on the Top500? They’re not playing this game.

Spoiler alert: Henry agrees with Dan on something. Really. It’s at the 10:00 mark, if you’ve got to see it to believe it. We hardly believed it ourselves. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Radio Free HPC looks at Consolidation in the Supercomputing Industry

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team regroups after SC12 to discuss an industry trend that was in evidence at the show: vendor consolidation.

• Cray just acquired Appro
• Intel acquired Qlogic Truescale InfiniBand, Whamcloud, and Cray interconnect IP
• IBM bought Platform
• Xyratex bought ClusterStor
• Hitachi acquired BlueArc
• NetApp bought Engenio storage
• And so on...

The guys discuss how acquisitions need to be integrated the 'right' way and how it's more than just slapping up new logos on websites and combining slide decks. They also talk about some cautionary tales in the world of tech acquisitions along with some success stories. Dan offers a success story: IBM and Platform. Rich predicts which major vendor will next be swallowed whole; Henry predicts a challenge to Intel's x86 dominance. In "SC After Hours" chatter, Dan describes "My Dinner With Henry" in Salt Lake City, and Rich is accused of being the biggest Apple fanboi in all of HPC and, perhaps, the world. Watch for a special cameo appearance by someone who knows all about buyouts: Larry Ellison. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Texas Instruments Builds System on Chip for HPC

In this podcast, Arnon Friedmann from Texas Instruments describes the company's new multicore System-on-Chips (SoCs). Based on its award winning KeyStone architecture, TI's SoCs are designed as accelerate traditional x86 servers as well as enable the building purpose-built, energy efficient devices for specific applications powered by ARM processors and TI DSPs on the same package.

Targeted for applications such as networking, radar, imaging, high performance computing, gaming and media processing, TI's new KeyStone multicore processors offer developers more than twice the capacity & performance at half the power relative to existing solutions.

Read the Full Story * Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * If Dropbox is blocked, Download from Google Drive.

Podcast: Cray to Acquire Appro

Today Cray made a surprise announcement that the company intends to acquire Appro International, a privately-held developer of advanced scalable supercomputing solutions, for approximately $25 million in cash. Currently the #3 provider on the Top100 supercomputer list, Appro builds some of the world's most advanced high performance computing (HPC) cluster systems.

Appro is one of the market leaders in HPC cluster solutions, and this acquisition is another step forward as we continue to transform Cray into a company that provides world-class offerings to customers across all segments of the supercomputing market, including Big Data," said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray. "I look forward to welcoming all our new Cray colleagues in this exciting moment for our company -- positioning us well for accelerated growth into the future."

In this special RichReport Podcast, Pete Ungaro discusses the Appro acquisition on the company's quarterly earnings call. Read the Full Story.

Preview of Beowulf Bash at SC12

In this podcast, Douglas Eadline gives us preview of the Beowulf Bash at SC12 in Salt Lake City. Along the way Lara Kisielewska from Xand Marketing and Jeff Layton from Dell provide the color commentary on past events. The Bash takes place at the Clark Planetarium On Nov. 12 from 9:00pm to 12 Midnight. Bring your SC12 badge to get in. Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * If Dropbox is blocked, download from Google Drive.

SC12 Preview Show

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team discusses what they're expecting to see at this week's SC12 conference in Salt Lake City. Get the scoop on what's new, what's old, and what's just plain played out. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Wrangle Big Data with Loggly Cloud-based Log Management Service

In this podcast, Loggly CEO Charlie Oppenheimer describes why the company is the world's most popular cloud-based Log Management Service.

Loggly has a rich set of features that makes log management fun and easy, and being 100% cloud-based means our focus in on scale and speed so you can focus on your application not hosting and hardware. While demand for storing all those logs is accelerating along with all the data being generated, the technology behind the storage and processing of data also continues to accelerate. Within a few months time, the technology we are developing at Loggly will provide companies a way to peek into these large volumes of log data – where they couldn’t before – and allow them to see exactly what their users are doing with all that big data.

* Download the MP3 * Download the slides (PDF) * Subscribe on iTunes * If Dropbox is blocked, download audio from Google Drive.

Samplify APAX Compression Lowers Cost of Big Science

In this podcast, Samplify CEO Alan Evans presents: APAX: Lowering the Cost of Big Science, Big Data, and Cloud Computing.

Multi-core CPUs are hitting the memory wall,” said Al Wegener, CTO and founder of Samplify. “With each new process node, the number of processor cores on a die can double with Moore’s Law, but the throughput of memory, I/O, and storage fails to keep up with this growth. Hence, the performance of multi-core applications is increasingly memory, I/O, and storage bound. APAX is the only solution that accelerates the throughput DDRx, SAS/SATA, SSD, PCIe, Ethernet, and Infiniband, by up to six times.”

Samplify will demonstrate the APAX profiler and hardware IP at the SC12 conference in booth #4151. Read the Full Story * Download the MP3 * Download the slides (PDF) * Subscribe on iTunes * If Dropbox is blocked, download audio from Google Drive.

RF-HPC Ep13 Melting Amazon's Glacier

In this podcast, a sleep-deprived, rage-fueled Henry Newman assails Glacier, Amazon's cloud archive and backup offering. Amazon is pitching Glacier as a solution for customers who don't need frequent access to their data and can handle retrieval times of several hours. The big enticements are low, low cost -- as little as a penny per gigabyte per month -- and durability. Dan and Henry weed through each facet of Amazon's marketing claims and -- well -- rip each one to shreds. Henry thinks this is aimed at the unsuspecting/unfortunate home or small business consumer, as anyone with technology expertise will run far, far away from Glacier. Dan compares it to the "Roach Motel" of storage: once you're in, you can never get out. And don't even get them started on the definition of "durable." Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep12 Tracking Backlash and Big Data

In this podcast, our hosts agree that "software is not magic" and consumers don't want to be tracked. Will there be a backlash? Will this be the new marketing point for competing browsers? Dan admits to being creeped out by email offers that result from Internet searches... Rich reveals that he is besieged by ads for smokers (the kind for cooking critters)... and the Profound Thought of the Day comes from Henry. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep 11 Rich Goes to OSCON

At OSCON, or the Open Source Convention, a presentation on the "Clothesline Paradox" aptly illustrated the way developers create value. Many large companies such as Comcast make a living on open-source software. In this podcast, Dan digresses into a string of complaints about his Comcast bill, but Henry and Rich reel in the discussion: was the Internet created out of generosity, or enlightened self-interest? And we hear again from one of our sponsors: Glade 'Data Center Edition' air fresheners. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep10 Exascale Challenge Power

Power is a major challenge standing in the way of the Exascale computing. While the target is to consume 20 MW or less for an exascale machine, current technology trends will not take us there by 2018. In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team discusses why this is such a tough challenge, where such a system might need to be hosted, and types of infrastructure that will need to be considered. Along the way, you'll hear scary "power" music and figure out how this all relates to Mad Max, lasers, unicorns, and Planet of the Apes. Download the MP3 * Download the Video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep 9 Remembering Allan Snavely, HPC Visionary

This podcast is devoted to Allan Snavely, CTO of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, who passed away unexpectedly in July 2012. He was widely known as a brilliant scientist and innovator, and for his work at SDSC on the Gordon supercomputer. Allan will be greatly missed by his many friends and the entire HPC community. Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep 8 Is Tape Dead or Just Quiet?

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team takes a look at Amazon's new "Tape Killer" Glacier data archive offering. At just pennies per Gigabyte, will it make tape silos obsolete, or will Henry blow a gasket because that is simply inconceivable? Download the MP3 * Download the video * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

RF HPC Ep7 What’s the Deal With Exascalar

In this podcast, the hosts discuss the Exascalar measure/benchmark and what it’s telling us. Exascalar combines Top500 and Green500 data in order to see if the industry is on track to hit the goal of an exascale system that consumes less than 20MW of juice by 2020. Like usual, the conversation takes some interesting turns into how to measure performance, power consumption, and efficiency. For some reason, laptops got added into the mix too.

RF HPC Ep6 When Big Data Goes Bad

In this podcast, the topic is Big Data and analytics. More specifically, the guys talk about a couple of examples of when over-reliance on analytics leads to bad outcomes. The first deals with some high school kids who were allegedly found to be cheating by a plagiarism software program and the second looks at how a major bank may have lost up to $9 billion due to lack of proper controls and blind faith in existing analytic systems.

Radio Free HPC Ep5 ISC’12 Intel Phi

In this podcast, the guys talk about Intel’s introduction of their new Phi multi-core processor at ISC12, and what customers will need to do to take advantage of it. Henry Newman says something profound. We touch on the merits of an all pastry diet and the state of programming today. Rich throws Dan/Henry a curveball. Dan introduces a new sponsor – Glade Data Center Edition, which promises to give data centers an aroma makeover. We find out that Henry likes black bread.

Radio Free HPC Ep4 ISC12 Cluster

In this podcast, we look back at ISC’12 and the ISC Student Cluster Challenge. Dan proposes a joint challenge so we could crown a world student cluster champion – and award a massive trophy. The hosts discuss how the cluster challenge makes participating students a hot commodity on the job market. And this episode includes gongs.

Radio Free HPC Ep3 Is LINPACK

In this podcast, a conversation with Jack Dongarra (of Top500 list fame) at ISC’12 is the inspiration for a spirited discussion of whether the venerable LINPACK benchmark has outlived its usefulness. Dan accuses Henry of cursing the darkness, then they talk about what is, and isn’t, a good benchmark.

Radio Free HPC Ep2 When Tech Lies

In this podcast, we discuss what happens when technology lies to you. It starts with Dan ranting about how his exercise machine has been lying for more than a year now, but evolves into a discussion of benchmarks and benchmarking.

Radio Free HPC Ep1 Data Integrity

In this first episode of our Radio Free HPC podcast, the guys talk about Data Integrity and the menace of Silent Data Corruption – complete with a real life example! There is also talk of skin diving, moldy sandwiches and the wheel. Plus we welcome our flagship sponsor: Good Enough For Now Systems.