[nylug-announce] TODAY! NYLUG Tuesday 15 may General Meeting Presents: Eric Moore on Computing Clusters

[John Bacall]

REMINDER: If not already on the RSVP list, you can sign-in manually at the desk.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
6:30pm-8:00pm
Google
76th 9th Ave., b/w 15th and 16th St.
4th Floor, enter near 16th Street

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                               Eric Moore
                                  -on-
                           Computing Clusters


  Computing clusters. Harnessing the power of multiple computers to do
  lots of work. This Tuesday, 15 May Dr. Eric Moore will present on the
  usability, reliability, computational might of connecting various
  hardware to form a single computational entity. A cluster of computers.

  You might wonder, doesn't, didn't virtualization render clustering
  obsolete? expensive, unreliable by comparison? ``Making one PC look
  like many is not the same as making many look like one.  Virtualization
  is for when your iron has more horsepower than needed to do one thing,
  so you want it doing many things.  Clustering (at least the sort Eric
  will discuss) is for when too much horsepower is not enough (and in
  his world, too many flops is never enough, such is life in a field where
  O(N^4) algorithms are considered fast, and run times are often measured
  in weeks),''says Eric.

  Does Linux lead in clustering? Doesn't *BSD rockit harder? ``Yes, no.''

  Should you get Slackware, or Ubuntu, or that little book that tells
  you how to roll your own Linux?

  ``Depends on what you're trying to do.'' Eric will share his experience
  and astutely guide your options.

  Clustering is basically the art of harnessing together many computers
  to do computations that can't be done by one (or in many cases, to
  conveniently do a bunch of computations that can be done on one all at
  the same time).  (There are also high-availability clusters, which will
  be discussed only peripherally). Clusters are found in all sorts of
  places, from Google, which uses them to build its search indexes, to
  the giant render farms that give us animated movies, to the Beowulf
  clusters of scientific research (and their Ghettowulf cousins which
  Eric has mostly built).  If it takes more than a couple hours for your
  program to run, you may want a cluster for that.

  The talk will cover a number of questions regarding:

  * Can you use a cluster for my problem?
  * Should you?
  * What sort of cluster?
  * What tools are there for your kind of problem?
  * What are the trade-offs you need to look at, and what works in what
    situations?
  * What are your options?
  * Who uses these things, and for what?

  Clustering is a really big field, and covers a lot of ground, and
  there's a lot of really good stuff for doing it under Linux, come hear
  about a whole bunch of these things.

  If you need a cluster, think you need a cluster (or think you don't 
  need one and want to make sure), or just have a bunch of PC's you want
  to turn into a cluster just because, you just might learn something.

  It never hurts to come to a talk about an area where Linux and Free
  Software are the undisputed masters of the field.

  RSVP your place at the marvelous Google lair for this Tuesday, 15 May
  NYLUG meeting. Many thanks to Google for their kind hospitality in
  hosting our group.

  Further Information:

  RGB's beowulf book:
  http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/beowulf_book.php

  The beowulf website:
  http://www.beowulf.org/

  OSCAR:
  http://oscar.openclustergroup.org/

  Open Mosix:
  http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/

  SGE:
  http://gridengine.sunsource.net/

  Condor:
  http://www.cs.wisc.edu/condor/

About Eric Moore:
  Eric's a computational chemist, who has had to set up and maintain
  several clusters in his career, and has learned most of the ways not
  to do it, and some things to do.  Right now he teaches for a living,
  but would rather be crunching numbers.  Giving a talk about
  crunching numbers is almost as good.  

Meeting Location
  Please note that this meeting will be held at Google, 76 9th Ave,
  4th floor, between 15th and 16th Streets, and not at IBM. This is
  the old Port Authority Building, and takes up the entire block.
  You want the entrance nearest 16th Ave.

Map
  http://tighturl.com/u4

Free Refreshments!
  Google is also graciously providing refreshments during the
  meeting. For those of us here in the east who aren't used to a
  "Google spread", you're in for quite a treat. "New Google
  Cafeteria Crushes Competitors" Cafeterias" (New York Magazine)

Books!!!
  Our friends at Prentice-Hall kindly provide us with review copies
  of various new titles.  One of these could be yours, all you have
  to do is agree to review the book within a reasonable period of
  time.

Swag (Give Away)
  During/after the meeting... unusually terrific swag may be given
  away.

Stammtisch
  After the meeting ... Many of us have been meeting over at the
  Hog Pit starting around 8:15-8:30.
  http://www.hogpit.com

Please see our home page at http://www.nylug.org for the HTMLized
version of this announcement, our archives, and a lot of other good
stuff.