This year’s IEEE/ACM Supercomputing conference will showcase a new academic challenge event. The Cluster Challenge is an event designed for students [no degrees permitted] to attempt to harness the power of a modern high performance computing cluster. The green flag drops on Monday night of SC07 for teams to construct, test and tune their respective cluster systems. The end goal being to optimize their machines for a variety of predesignated compute workloads. Teams gain points based on the level of optimization achieved. The teams have only two days to complete the challenge.
Easy, right? There are a few designated rules. Teams may only utilize a single 19″ rack for their system. The system cannot exceed a single 30amp, 100 volt circuit [with a soft cap of 26 amps]. Penalties will be issued if the power thresholds are exceeded. Teams are encouraged to parnter with a vendor in order to cover the cost of hardware.
The list of Cluster Challenge benchmark applications include:
- High Performance Computing Challenge [HPCC]
- Parallel Ocean Program [POP]
- General Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure System [GAMESS]
- Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer [POV-Ray]
For more information, check the SC07 website.
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