SC19 Student Cluster Competition - Preview

Blood Sweat Glory, But No Tears

“This is a groundbreaking episode of RadioFreeHPC….groundbreaking, I tell you!

We have a very special guest, our first post-millennial commentator, Jessi Lanum who is a Student Cluster Competition veteran and is on the show to give us an insider peek at what it’s like to compete for cluster competition glory. Like a fresh ocean breeze, Jessi adds a lot to this episode with her enthusiasm, wit, and smart pithy comments.

Our topic today is the 2019 Student Cluster Competition which will take place on the show floor of SC’19.

For the few of you who are not already fans of these events, here’s the lowdown: 16 student teams representing universities from around the world have been working their brains out designing, building, and tuning clusters provided by their sponsors. They can use as much hardware as they want, the only limitation is that their systems can’t use more than 3,000 watts during the competition.

When the green flag drops on Monday afternoon, the students will start running a variety of HPC benchmarks and real-world HPC applications. The goal is to get the best/fastest results and thus prove that they have built, tuned, and optimized the best cluster platform. It’s a hugely exciting event. Dan goes over who all is competing this year and what apps they'll be running. We also get a rare inside scoop from Jessi on what it’s like to prep and compete in the cluster competition. It’s both fascinating and fun to hear what they go through during the grueling 46-hour event.

If you want even more information about the Student Cluster Competitions, visit Dan’s site at www.StudentClusterComp.com to find out everything you ever wanted to know – and more. Dan's been covering this competition around the world for about a decade and been taking copious notes!

Why No One Should Ever Be Online. Ever.

Henry discusses how retailer Orvis was pretty much completely owned by hackers. It’s a post-Halloween horror story, as hackers had their hooks into them from August to October, scary stuff. What worse is what they’ll have to do to recover, clean up their systems, and try to put the pieces together.

Catch of the Week:

Jessi tells us about how Palo Alto Networks is providing free network security training, and certification, for veterans – great job Palo Alto Networks!

Henry shares his theory, buttressed by evidence, that the next big race will take place in low earth orbit as vendors race to put up satellites to provide better and faster internet access.

Shahin discusses a blockchain based calendar that he feels will have a big impact in the future.

Dan brings up the "problematic" introduction of the Disney+ streaming application and we all talk the numbers, including how many subscribers they initially nabbed, the pricing, and the impact on competitors.

"What Should I Do Next?", You Ask?

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Have a comment? Complaint? Question? Topic? Guest? We’re all ears. Our email address really should be ears@radiofreehpc.com but for now it is podcast@radio... We'd love to hear from you.

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