Cycle Computing and Purdue power Condor pool at SC09

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Cycle Computing and Purdue University are previewing the Condor pool they’ll have up and running during SC09 this week. You’ll recall that Condor is a cycle-scavenging application that’s been around a while which allows users to run distributed applications on desktops and workstations that might otherwise sit idle (at night, for example)

Cycle and Purdue will demonstrate how harnessing the power of idle, unused compute cycles can help companies cost-effectively perform computationally intensive tasks while optimizing existing IT investments and saving energy.

The Condor pool created at the event will be a smaller-scale version of Purdue’s DiaGrid, which utilizes Cycle Computing’s CycleServer management tools to aggregate the idle compute power of 28,000 processors across the university and on other campuses in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin.  Generating 177 teraflops of compute power, DiaGrid contributes more than two million hours to research projects every month – the equivalent of a $3 million supercomputer.  The research clusters within the DiaGrid pool also average a 1-2 percent idle time, providing one of the highest compute-utilization levels ever.  The project benefits faculty, researchers and students who are able to perform demanding science, bioinformatics and social science research and computationally intensive tasks like rendering high-resolution pictures and video.  The benefits of DiaGrid are available internationally as well through the NSF TeraGrid and Open Science Grid.  Additionally, Campus Technology Magazine selected DiaGrid for a 2009 International Campus Technology Innovators Award.