[Beowulf] Outdoor location?

[Vincent Diepeveen]

It's funny that you mention Germany and outdoor supercomputing in 1 
sentence.

Memories.

Paderborn februari 1999.

It feels like yesterday.

Travelling on the highway towards Paderborn, which is quite both the center 
as well as the supercomputing center of Germany,
i fight my way through the thin wet-snow on the German highways towards 
Paderborn. A Mercedes passes by, at half its normal
speed of 200KM/h (unlimited speed at German highways). 30 minutes later, 
meanwhile i had to slow down to 30 kilometer
an hour at the highway, because of the everything penetrating thin snow, i 
pass that Mercedes again. Me on the road, the Mercedes
on the damage lane.

Finally, after 5 hours of driving over a distance that normally is far under 
2 hours, i arrive at the big cube.
The Siemens-Nixdorf supercomputing center.

Trying to get air, meanwhile the snow enters every corner of my face, i 
stand in front of the huge complex in front of the first door
and knock on it. It opens. I walk further 2 meters and stand in front of 
another door. With a big DANG and a loud CLICK the first door closes behind 
me.
Half a minute later, the door in front of me opens.

The security guard barks as only Germans typically can do to their dog and 
uninvited guests:
"Was haben Sie hier zu suchen?" (Why are you here sir?)

After 15 minutes with the security guard, who spells every letter that 
stands in my passport, meanwhile trying to write a novel about it,
i finally get liberated by Rainer Feldmann, who nearly gets saluted by the 
guard: "Guten Morgen Herr Doktor".

Now we walk a funny route in the building. First we go 50 meters to the 
right. Then we walk 100 meters to the left,
again 100 meters left. Meanwhile Rainer with a happy face asks me whether i 
hear the ear deafening sound, making me nod.

"That's the water central."

Then we arrive at the playing hall at which point i start to wonder whether 
the route we walked was the most efficient one to get there.

When i ask the by then already bigtime smiling Rainer: "What hardware do you 
play at?", i get promptly answer, as if he expected that question:
   "We just walked around it!".

Entering a room, i shake hands with Ulf Lorenz. Then i walk towards the 
window, or whatever they call windows there.
Had the Pentagon been equipped with what they call windows there, probably 
the damage would've been less a 2.5 years later!

Ulf, seeing that i look to the windows says: "Yes it is always 19C in the 
entire building. No winter, no summer, always 19C.
It's the only disadvantage of this building, some people get sick of it 
here."

But all this avoids of course that a Russian expedition army can rob empty 
the entire building in a single dark night.

Vincent

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan Louis Scheinine" <scheinin at crs4.it>
To: "Eric McCaughrin" <emccaughrin at yahoo.com>
Cc: <beowulf at beowulf.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 4:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Outdoor location?


> Eric McCaughrin wrote:
>  > In Northern Calif., we are blessed with natural,
>  > year-round air conditioning. Ambient temps very rarely
>  > go over 85F, or lower than 40F. With HVAC being a
>  > major (biggest?) cost, I am wondering if anyone
>  > considered an outdoor location?
>
> I do not intend to make an advertisement for Angstrom
> blade clusters, but it may be interesting to know
> that they claim that their blade cluster can use
> outdoor air cooling for most of the year (in a temperate
> climate such as Germany).  The trick (I think?) is to
> have powerful fans.
>
> best regards,
> Alan Scheinine
>
>  Centro di Ricerca, Sviluppo e Studi Superiori in Sardegna
>  Center for Advanced Studies, Research, and Development in Sardinia
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