[Beowulf] Acceptable rad limits for cluster rooms?

[Daniel Kidger]

Brian,

LANL have quite a bit of experience here. They are a high altitude site with
significant HPC systems. The high altitude has caused measurable error rates
in their computing hardware due to cosmic rays.
They have even done tests like deliberately firing neutrons at their systems.

e.g.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1545894&isnumber=3
2989

.. not sure about any issue with beta radiation and clusters - most nodes are
in metal boxes in metal racks?

Daniel


Dr. Daniel Kidger, Technical Consultant, Clearspeed plc, Bristol UK
E: dan.kidger at clearspeed.com
T: +44 117 317 2030
M: +44 7738 458742
"Write a wise saying and your name will live forever." - Anonymous.


-----Original Message-----
From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On
Behalf Of Brian Oborn
Sent: 16 June 2006 22:22
To: beowulf at beowulf.org
Subject: [Beowulf] Acceptable rad limits for cluster rooms?

The cluster for our Physics department is next to a room that, at the 
time of installation, was an empty accelerator hall. However, a new 
electron accelerator has been installed and the cluster room is now a 
mild radiation area. Before we start considering shielding options, I 
was wondering if anybody on this list could offer insight into 
"acceptable" radiation limits for normal, rackmount cluster nodes with 
ECC memory, and if there are energy threasholds in beta and gamma 
radiation that might be significant.

Thanks for any input.

Brian Oborn
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