Did you hear that? Of course not, it is my cluster.

This project was originally started as a quest for a small and silent HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer). We have constructed and built several of these boxes. The latest and best design can be seen further down the page in Figure One.

These HTPC systems are cooled passively in the sense that no fans are involved in the cooling of the CPU. The technique used for the cooling turned out to be rather efficient, that is, adequate cooling can be achieved without making the system significantly larger. For instance, the HTPC shown in Figure One (below) has the dimensions 29 x 27 x 10 cm (11.4 x 10.6 x 4 inches), and even if a fan were to be used it would not be trivial to build a smaller system with the chosen components. We will say more about the design principles as they apply to personal clusters later in the article.

Some conveniently late news (after SC09) for the HPC market

I may write more about SC09 in the next few weeks, but for now the video is starting to show up on at Linux Magazine and I already posted a SC09: Three Trends Worth Watching over at HPC Community. You can get a good feel for things from those two articles. I'll also be posting more video on Linux Magazine over the next several weeks.

The weeks after SC are usually quiet as the holidays approach. This year seems to be a little different. There have been more than a few interesting annoucements about the HPC market. I find it kid of interesting how all these show up after SC09. Perhaps these are the kind of announcements you don't want gobbled up by the press. In any case, I have collected the stories and added a little commentary to each. An interesting time in HPC to say the least.

The offcial video for the 2009 Beowulf Bash in Portland has hit the Internet. Check it out. Maybe you will see yourself or someone you know or someone you don't know and are glad you don't.

Of course I would be remiss if I did not mention the sponsors on last time; AMD, Econnectix, InsideHPC, Penguin, SICORP, Terascala, Xand Marketing, and of course ClusterMonkey.

When I travel to the west coast (I live on the east coast) it takes my body 3-4 days to adjust, which is always when it is time to head home. I was out last night for a late dinner, got back to the hotel about midnight and woke up wide awake at 5:30am. By this afternoon I will be dragging my feet. It may be time for my first Red Bull (maybe that should be plural).

I'm still shifting through the news and I'll have more coverage throught week, but the big "tend" seems to be GP-GPU computing. Everyone is talking about it and there are plenty of products on the show floor. Of course it could be that the whole concept of racking, stacking, and managing clusters has been discussed to the Nth degree and GP-GPUs are fresh idea worth considering.

The Beobash was a great success. Here are some pictures and comments from John Leidel over at InsideHPC. Thanks to all the sponsors and the Linux Chick for all their support. I'll be posting video next week. Speaking of video, I have been spending a bunch of time doing video un-professional interviews for Linux Magazine. They should be hitting the web next week as well.

Someone also said they saw a hard copy of "HPC Dummies" at the show. Boy it would be nice to get copy of the book I wrote (some may call it a pamphlet). I'll down a few Red Bull and go on a quest today to see if I can snag a copy. There is nothing like a caffeine crazed overly tired writer pestering you at a trade show.

One final bit of news. I have a prototype of my Limulus personal cluster workstation up and running. If you are SC09, it is in the SICORP booth (1209). You can find more information (pictures and slide deck) on the project site. You want one of these.