Just a quick note to update you on the Green HPC podcast series, which has gotten a tremendous response (thanks!). I’ve added a transcript of the first episode, in case you’re more of a reading person than a listening person. If you don’t know about the series yet, take a listen to the first episode.

In the inaugural episode of the Green HPC podcast series we will examine the issues that datacenter managers and system designers are facing with high performance computing systems of all sizes today. Even if you aren’t “green at heart,” there are very practical and compelling reasons why a growing awareness of energy use in your datacenter — how much, where it goes, and what it costs you — is critical to your success.

Listen to Episode 1 and meet the guests

In this episode we hear from Wu-chun Feng of the Green500, Wilf Pinfold of Intel, Horst Simon of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and Dan Reed of Microsoft Research. We’ll hear from these leaders in HPC and technology how the conversation about energy in HPC has evolved — did you know one of our guests was booed off the stage giving some of the early talks about green HPC?

And we’ll also hear very practical reasons that everyone involved in high performance computing and supercomputing needs to be concerned about their energy consumption.

From 50,000 feet, it’s about improving the standard of living for everyone. Supercomputing is a technology that is vital to the continued develop of our culture and our civilization and the barrier to bringing those benefits to even more people is the amount of energy supercomputers require. Yes, reducing energy use is goodness, but an equally powerful reason to go green in HPC is to be able to bring the benefits of technology to even more people.

Not at 50,000 foot view kind of person? No problem…as several of our guests point out, there are very practical one-datacenter-at-a-time reasons to be aware of green HPC as well. You’d like to spend more money on computers and less on energy right? Or maybe your power distribution system can’t handle your next upgrade and you can’t afford more power? Then solutions in green HPC are very much solutions you need to know about.

Listen to Green HPC Episode 1:Sifting through the Hype, get speaker bios and links related to their comments, and more at the Green HPC Episode 1 home page. Or visit the Green HPC Podcast Series home page to learn more about the entire series.

Everyone’s favorite Rocks cluster team members, Philip Papadopoulos and Greg Bruno, were recently interviewed as a part of the FLOSS Weekly podcast show [episode 30].  They were interviewed courtesy of Randal Schwartz and Leo Laporte, formerly of TechTV fame.  The questions weren’t directly focused on the traditional role of Rocks in the HPC world, but rather the interview sheds some light on some additional applicable vehicles for Rocks.  Very cool!

This just goes to show that HPC is really gaining some media notoriety outside of our niche of technology.

Download the podcast directly here, or listen online here.

In today's Takeout we count yet one more reason it sucks to be AMD as we consider recently reported news that AMD may be losing out as the chip vendor of choice on the KISTI supercomputer. You can find the original story by Michael Feldman at http://insidehpc.com/2008/02/04/korean-super-may-bail-on-amd-switch-to-intel/.

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In today's Takeout we talk a little about SGI's 14k core New Mexico system, and what it means to be up and running in 48 hours. You can find the original story at http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/30/14k-core-nm-altix-up-in-48-hours/.

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In today's Takeout we think inside the box with a look at new announcements around Sun's Project Blackbox. You can find the original story at http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/30/blackbox-gets-a-new-name-and-shiny-new-customers/.

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Today's Takeout brings news of Intel's great sales and bad Wall Street news and AMD's just bad news. Earnings seasons for the chip makers on the Daily Takeout. You can find the original stories at http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/15/intels-profit-jumps-only-to-dissapoint-investors/ and http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/21/amd-reports-q4-losses-of-17b/.

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Today's Takeout is all SGI with news of new gear being installed in China and here at home at PSC. You can find the stories at http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/21/sgi-installs-chinas-largest-shared-memory-machine/ and http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/17/psc-buys-new-sgi-supers/.

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It's installation Wednesday on the takeout, with news of SiCortex's first deskside customer ship, and Japan's new 95 TFLOPS Appro super. You can find the stories at http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/22/sicortex-delivers-first-sc072-deskside/ and http://insidehpc.com/2008/01/22/university-of-tsukuba-selects-appro-xtreme-x/.

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Today's takeout brings news of the release of the latest version of the "What is HPC?" presentation. Love it? Hate it? Let me know by sending me email at john@insidehpc.com. You can find more details on this alpha and the ideas behind the project on this page: http://insidehpc.com/hpccan.

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