Intel Omni-Path Rocks the TOP500

In this podcast from ISC 2017 in Frankfurt, the Radio Free HPC team sits down with Scott Misage from Intel to learn why Intel Omni-Path has gained momentum on the TOP500.
"Intel Omni-Path Architecture delivers the performance for tomorrow’s high performance computing workloads and the ability to scale to tens of thousands of nodes—and eventually more—at a price competitive with today’s fabrics. The Intel OPA 100 Series product line is an end-to-end solution of PCIe* adapters, silicon, switches, cables, and management software. As the successor to Intel® True Scale Fabric, this optimized HPC fabric is built upon a combination of enhanced IP and Intel technology."

The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these updates always coincides with the International Supercomputing Conference in June, and the second is presented at the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference in November. The project provides a reliable basis for tracking and detecting trends in high-performance computing and bases rankings on HPL, a portable implementation of the high-performance LINPACK benchmark written in Fortran for distributed-memory computers.

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Running Down the TOP500

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the latest TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers. It's Day 1 here at the ISC 2017 conference, and we'll be keeping you posted on all the news as the show goes June 18-22 in Frankfurt, Germany.

 After that, we do our Catch of the Week:

• Student Cluster Competition Update: The student team from NUDT in China has Visa troubles, so they will not be able to participate this week in Frankfurt. That reduces the field to 11 international teams.
• What's up with the Aurora supercomputer that was supposed to come to Argonne next year? Rich has the scoop.

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The Day-by-Day ISC 2017 Preview Show

In this podcast, Rich gives us a day-by-day preview of the upcoming ISC 2017 conference. The event takes place June 18-22 in Frankfurt, Germany.
"ISC High Performance focuses on HPC technological development and its application in scientific fields, as well as its adoption in commercial environments. In 2017 we offer you 13 fascinating HPC topics grouped under three categories: systems, applications, and emerging topics. All topics will be addressed in different power-packed sessions. The ISC tutorials, workshops and the exhibition will complement these sessions."

Friday, June 16

• HP-CAST is the high performance user group meeting for HPE customers and partners. Over 300 attendees are expected for the two-day meeting, which you can read about here on insideHPC.

Saturday, June 17

• The Student Cluster Competition teams begins their system buildout at the Frankfurt Messe. An exhibitor pass is required for entry to the hall.
• HP-CAST Day 2 has a focus on partner sessions.

Sunday, June 18

• ISC 17 Tutorials all day at the Frankfurt Messe.

Monday, June 19

• TOP500 list is released.
• ISC 2017 Opening Session
  
  • Keynote: Dr. Jennifer Tour Chayes, Distinguished Scientist, Managing Director of Microsoft Research New England and Microsoft Research NYC will present: Network Science: From the Massive Online Networks to Cancer Genomics
• Exhibit Opening 3:00pm - 9:00pm
• Intel Special Session with Raj Hazra, 6:00pm - 6:45pm

Tuesday, June 20

• Exhibits 10-6
• DDN User Group, 12:30pm - 5:00pm at the Movenpick Hotel

Wednesday, June 21

• Exhibits 10-6
• Student Cluster Awards Ceremony

Thursday, June 22

• Workshops all day at the Marriott
• Women in HPC Workshop 9:00am - 1:00pm
• Dell HPC Community meeting, 8:00am - 3:00pm. The Dell EMC HPC Community event will feature keynote presentations by HPC experts and a networking breakfast to discuss best practices in the use of Dell EMC HPC Systems.
• Rich heads out for Motorcycle tour of the Alps

Monday, June 26-28

• PASC17 Conference in Lugano, Switzerland

After that, we do our Catch of the Week:

• Dan interviews Carolyn Posti from Redline on the topic of HPC Benchmarking
• Rich buys an Antminer S7 for mining Bitcoins

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A Quick Tour of the SuperNAP Datacenter in Las Vegas

In this Radio Free HPC podcast, Rich gives us the lowdown on his recent tour of the SuperNAP datacenter in Las Vegas. Run by Switch, the campus has over up to 2.4 million sqft of Tier IV Gold data center space with 315 Megawatts of datacenter capacity.

"Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, Switch is built on the intelligent and sustainable growth of the Internet. Its Founder and CEO, Rob Roy, developed more than 260 patent and patent-pending claims covering data center designs that manifested into their world-renowned data centers and their technology solution ecosystems."

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

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Henry Goes Wild at Best Buy

In this podcast, Henry goes on a shopping spree at Best Buy. His mom was moving into a new place, so he got her all-new electronics to the tune of $1624. Is Henry a good son or did he go cheap? We'll find out.

After that, we do our Catch of the Week:

Rich notes that recent reports about the Aurora supercomputer were incorrect. Rick Borchelt from DoE: “On the record, Aurora contract is not cancelled."

Shahin has been trying to keep up with the boom in cryptocurrency, which now has a market cap of something like $91 Billion dollars.

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Google's New TPU2 Tensor Processing Unit

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the announcements coming from Google IO conference. Of particular interest was their second-generation TensorFlow Processing Unit (TPU2).

After that, we do our Catch of the Week.

New Nvidia Volta GPUs for HPC & AI

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at Volta, Nvidia's new GPU architecture that delivers up to 5x the performance of its predecessor.

At the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang introduced a lineup of new Volta-based AI supercomputers including a powerful new version of our DGX-1 deep learning appliance; announced the Isaac robot-training simulator; unveiled the NVIDIA GPU Cloud platform, giving developers access to the latest, optimized deep learning frameworks; and unveiled a partnership with Toyota to help build a new generation of autonomous vehicles.

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