[Beowulf] How Can Microsoft's HPC Server Succeed?

[Gerry Creager]

Kyle Spaans wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Chris Dagdigian <dag at sonsorol.org> wrote:
>> spew out a terabyte per day of raw data and many times that stuff needs to
>> be post processed and distilled down into different forms. A nice little
>> 8-core box running a shrink-wrap HPC product with a single support contact
>> could find a nice little niche in non-datacenter areas where significant
>> compute is needed nearby some other sort of dedicated instrument or device.
> ...
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Greg Byshenk <gbyshenk at byshenk.net> wrote:
>>  a business will also have to find
>>  (and pay) someone to build and maintain the cluster.
> 
> 
> Forgive me perhaps for being naive, but why can't a knowledgeable
> teenager / college student be paid ~$10/hour plus on-call time to do a
> setup like this? Presuming they only need to hire someone to do
> setup/administration/support (and not the actual programming itself).

Such teenager would both likely be available and capable of such things. 
  A lot of businesses and bean-counters, however, will be leery of such 
an arrangement.  Never mind some of the degree-minded faculty at our 
universities... Yeah, I could name names.

Aside from that, the actual programming is a bit of a question.  Once 
again, the teenager might be a good candidate to write the "code" since 
they're likely more current in coding that that tenured professor who's 
been mentoring grad students and writing proposals instead of his first 
love of research...  A lot of folks in our place are using commercial 
"code" rather than writing their own. and then bending/folding their 
data to fit.  And for that matter, (s)he can probably figure out how to 
automate mos tof the administration and monitornig!
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University
Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.862.3982 FAX: 979.862.3983
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