[Beowulf] MareNostrum - pray for cooling

[David Mathog]

Today the Register ran an article on MareNostrum

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/13/barcelona_supercomputer/

which said it consumes 630kW, weighs 100,000 pounds, and
yet occupies only 1290 square feet.  Presumably that footprint
is for the equipment and not the total room size, because
488 watts/sq-ft seems a bit over the top.

Also, it lives in a chapel.  Really.

A bit of poking around on the web turned up this rather
interesting document:

http://www.upc.edu/catala/la-upc/govern/bupc/hemeroteca/2004/b69/20-09-2004.pdf

It's in Catalan but you can make some sense of it by picking
the nearest words in either French or Spanish (I'm not
fluent enough to publish a translation.)  Have a look at the
diagrams near the end.  It looks like a lot more than 1290
sq feet is assigned to this computer.  The chapel floor seems to
be untouched and is presumably still used - although given the
roar of the cluster nearby, perhaps only for services for the deaf.

If anybody from Barcelona is reading this list please supply more details.

Regards,

David Mathog
mathog at caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech