Jim, The new term (buzzword) for local computing is "edge computing" I continue to build Limulus appliance systems for this reason.
https://www.limulus-computing.com I can pack a reasonable amount of horsepower in a turn-key local power/noise/heat envelope (i.e. next to your desk with no data center needed) There are a variety of use cases such as you describe and situations where a Data Center (local or remote) is not a convenient possibility, yet computational heavy problems are important (as are some analytics Hadoop/Spark type things) There is a bunch of publicly available technical background in the online manual (not quite complete) The functional diagram can be very helpful. https://www.limulus-computing.com/Limulus-Manual Also, one of the enabling technologies has been 3D-Printing. We can put almost anything in a box (given power/heat constraints) by designing and printing parts to fit in commodity cases. Our micro-ATX blades are a good example. -- Doug > What I find fascinating about the poster from NASA is the comment about > "man in the loop data product generation" - this is what has always > interested me - being able to get interactive supercomputing - My desires > have always been to run moderately large models (run time >30 seconds) > with large parameter spaces, in an interactive sense, so I can "turn the > knobs" on the design. > > As a result, my particular interests have run more towards the > embarrassingly parallel, run lots of cases that a single node can handle, > with the associated scatter/gather. This is opposed to running "big > models" (although I've had reasons to do that). > > For example, in the last year, I've been running a lot of models of an > antenna forming the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array > (OVRO-LWA). This is a large array of hundreds of antennas scattered across > a few sq km near Big Pine, CA and observes the cosmos in the 30-80 MHz > band. The properties of a single antenna are easy and quick to model. But > there's a bunch of questions that require more time - What's the > interaction between the antennas? How close can they be and not interact? > What's the effect of manufacturing tolerances? When it rains, and the dirt > under the antenna is wet, how much does that change the response? > > Similarly, I've been doing models of wire antennas on the surface of the > Moon, for 100kHz to 50 MHz. Any one antenna is trivial and quick to model > (and, for that matter, there are analytic models that are pretty good). > But we've got the same questions. What if the rover laying the wire out > doesn't do it in a perfectly straight line? What's the interaction between > 2 antennas that are 300 meters apart (given that the wavelength at 100kHz > is 3km, the antennas are "close" in electromagnetic terms)? > > These are really sort of Monte Carlo type analyses (much like running > multiple runs of weather models with slightly different starting > parameters). > > Some time in the past (>10 years ago), I was really interested in "field > supercomputing" - there are problems (subsurface imaging by ground > penetrating radar) that require a lot of computation. And you don't have > a fat pipe to a HPC facility to send the data (satphones at 10s of kbps is > the notional scenario). But here, you want something that will survive > field use - no computer room, preferably a sealed box, etc. > > Interestingly, all of these are "personal HPC" - that is, the goal is to > have a HPC capability that is controlled locally - you don't have to > compete in a queue for resources, etc. and because it's "local", there's > no shoveling data to the HPC and getting results back. Further, it's > interactive - you want to tweak, run it again, and get the answers back > quickly - single digit minutes at most. This has been described as high > throughput computing, but I'm not sure that's right - to me that implies > sustained bandwidth - it's kind of like "station wagon full of tapes" has > high data throughput but long latency. Latency is important for human > scale interaction. > > These days, data pipes are easier to come by - A field scientist or > engineer could send megabits to a remote HPC center. I send my data and > computation to TACC, in Texas, and half of JPL's latest cluster Gattaca is > hosted at SuperNAP, hundreds of miles from my office. But neither of > those are truly interactive - there are batch queues, and while my jobs > are small enough to get done quickly (minutes), it *is* redolent of when I > was a youth, submitting my deck over the counter and coming back a few > hours later to pick up the greenbar paper. I want that immediacy - > glowing digits and characters on the screen appearing instantaneously, > even if it's "divide by zero error in Line 310", as opposed to sitting at > the keypunch and standing in line. (I do have to chuckle, though, at my > CS lecturers in the late 1970s making a big deal about desk checking your > code before submitting, because time is money, and computer time is more > expensive than your time - how life has changed in 40 years). > > > > > > On 10/15/20, 7:15 AM, "Beowulf on behalf of Michael Di Domenico" > <beowulf-boun...@beowulf.org on behalf of mdidomeni...@gmail.com> wrote: > > ah, interesting. > > this is what i was referring to, which is what i believe is codified > in the "beowulf" book i recall reading. > > > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2020/it_1.html__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_OaRx87I$ > > but it seems this also exists. i can't recall offhand whether that > was mentioned in the book or not > > > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.hq.nasa.gov/hpcc/reports/annrpt97/accomps/ess/WW49.html__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_c8ZFY-A$ > > > On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 9:44 AM Douglas Eadline <deadl...@eadline.org> > wrote: > > > > > > > On Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 12:10 AM Lux, Jim (US 7140) via Beowulf > > > <beowulf@beowulf.org> wrote: > > >> > > >> Well, maybe a Beowulf cluster of yugos⦠> > > > > > not really that far of a stretch, from what i can recall wasn't > the > > > first beowulf cluster a smattering of random desktops layout on > the > > > floor in an office > > > > Actually it was a single small cabinet with 486 processor > > motherboards and 10Mbit Ethernet with a hub. There is > > a small picture of it on the SC14 Beowulf Bash invite > > (in the middle) As I recall we could only find an old > > small picture of it. > > > > > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.clustermonkey.net/Supercomputing/beowulf-bash-invitations-2008-to-present.html__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_zWEo5Pw$ > > > > From there all kinds of configurations appeared. > > Including mostly "workstations" on wire shelves > > (the differentiation between "desktop" and "server" > > was just starting with the introduction of the Pentium-Pro) > > > > For those interested in the Beowulf history you can watch > > the short video (fully shareable BTW, sponsored by AMD) > > > > > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-epcSlAFvI__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_FyrFvOo$ > > > > > > -- > > Doug > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin > Computing > > > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > > > > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://beowulf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beowulf__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_or4lTPE$ > > > > > > > > > -- > > Doug > > > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin > Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > https://urldefense.us/v3/__https://beowulf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beowulf__;!!PvBDto6Hs4WbVuu7!bIrJokEF-PV-9u42csgECfdGQv6CPxfH654QEeVT__BsDh4PURoz-fJxq23GkgQ_or4lTPE$ > > -- Doug _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit https://beowulf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
