[Beowulf] bring back 2012?

[Michael Di Domenico]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2016 at 10:59 AM, Stu Midgley <sdm900 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Immersion cooling is practical, efficient, easy and has a ton of side
> benefits.
>
>  * cheap cooling (can run evaporative rather than compressors)
>  * nodes use 20% less energy due to removing fans
>  * node have less failures
>  * system is more robust against cooling failures (ie. if you lose cooling,
> tanks can take a long time to heat up to a point where you would turn nodes
> off - we have ridden out 20mins cooling outages)
>  * more reliable run times - cause cpu's never heat up and change their
> performance
>  * fluid has a high fire and flash point - so you can get permits to hold it
>  * fluid is readily available and cheap
>  * fluid is safe (I've ingested and swam in it with no adverse effects -
> yet)
>  * quiet - no 1" screaming fans

my intent is not to start a fluid war.  i merely was inquiring from
people that have it on a LARGE scale.  i've talked to a few that have
like 1 or 2 tanks, but not much more.

my questions really stem from those as a screw turner.  there isn't
much debate from me on the advantage of oil vs air vs direct to chip
cooling.  the science is there and progressing already

my questions is maintenance;

do i need a rubber suit to even touch anything or lest ruin my pants everyday?
even with lidded tanks do you find the oil aspirates and gets all over
everything?
does the oil reduce hardware failure to such an extent to make these
questions negligible?

i hadn't bumped into anyone that could answer those two questions from
a LARGE installation standpoint.  but if you've got >1pf in oil, i'd
say you have a card in this game.