Friday, August 31, 2012

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.