Monday, January 15, 2018

CIS(theta), 2017-2018 January Meeting: PelicanHPC!

CIS(theta), 2017-2018 
January MeetingPelicanHPC!

We successfully downloaded the latest pelicanHPC ISO (version 4.1 gnome), burned the ISO as a bootable DVD an booted the DVD in our lab. Now we can compile flops.f! flops.f is a program that stresses each core of your cluster scattering and gathering a Riemann Sum calculation for PI and calculating the cluster's performance. flops.f is written using openMPI and FORTRAN77:

mpif77 -o flops flops.f

Then we ran the flops executable:

mpirun -np 4 flops
mpirun -np 100 --hostfile machines flops

We can't set up a DHCP server to make a 100 core grid cluster anymore (second commandline) since IT made my room rejoin the WimpDoze DHCP server (after 24 years). BTW, machines is a text file listing all the DHCP allotted IP addresses on our intranet LAN. 

So, we can run SMP Clusters (first commandline). In other words, we can use all 4 cores on our quadcore Lenovo PCs, but that's about it. Doing so, we achieved very good performance: 2GFLOP/s per core and 8GFLOP/s per Linux Box. Yes, I know, we don't have Linux Boxes anymore, but the pelicanHPC DVD boots up Debian Linux with a Gnome desktop, so we can dream, can't we?

Here's your January homework: 
If you haven't done so already, download the pelicanHPC ISO file and burn your own bootable DVD. Don't worry if your first burn doesn't boot. You can use that DVD as a "Linux Coaster" for your favorite beverage the next time you play on SteamOS. If you can make this work at home, try to run Hello_World_MPI.py from John Burke's sample MPI4PY (MPI for Python) code. You can also try this tutorial.

Also, here's our third reading assignment. BTW, I was an editor on this book. That's why I recommend it. It's all about setting up and programming a Linux Cluster aka Super Computer with COWS (Commodity Off-the-shelf Work Stations = ordinary PCs). What's unique about this book is that it uses Java for all its coding samples making it an easy read for anyone who has taken AP CompSci!

You may also want to download and try out the BCCD ISO! I'm also looking at the hardware side of building our own cluster with RaspberryPi 3.0 single card computers which are also Debian and Python based. Maybe we'll play around with codrone to learn about programming drones too? Stay tuned!

NEW DECOR (Display Case):
Featuring ChromeCast & Processing!


NEW DECOR (Room 429):
Featuring Tapestry from RedBubble!

So, what's all this good for aside from making Fractal Zoom or Shrek Movies?
SETI Search
Econometrics
Bioinformatics
Protein Folding
Beal Conjecture
Scientific Computing
Computational Physics
Mersenne Prime Search
Computational Chemistry
Computational Astronomy
Computer Aided Design (CAD)
Computer Algebra Systems (CAS)

These are but a few examples of using Computer Science to solve problems in Mathematics and the Sciences (STEAM). In fact, many of these applications fall under the heading of Cluster Programming or Super Computing. These problems typically take too long to process on a single PC, so we need a lot more horse power. Next time, maybe we'll just use Titan!

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Membership (alphabetic by first name):
CIS(theta) 2017-2018:
BrandonB(12), JoehanA(12), RusselK(12)

CIS(theta) 2016-2017: 
DanielD(12), JevanyI(12), JuliaL(12), MichaelS(12), YaminiN(12)

CIS(theta) 2015-2016: 
BenR(11), BrandonL(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(12), HarrisonD(11), HunterS(12), JacksonC(11), SafirT(12), TimL(12)

CIS(theta) 2014-2015: 
BryceB(12), CheyenneC(12), CliffordD(12), DanielP(12), DavidZ(12), GabeT(11), KeyhanV(11), NoelS(12), SafirT(11)

CIS(theta) 2013-2014: 
BryanS(12), CheyenneC(11), DanielG(12), HarineeN(12), RichardH(12), RyanW(12), TatianaR(12), TylerK(12)

CIS(theta) 2012-2013: 
Kyle Seipp(12)

CIS(theta) 2011-2012: 
Graham Smith(12), George Abreu(12), Kenny Krug(12), LucasEager-Leavitt(12)

CIS(theta) 2010-2011: 
David Gonzalez(12), Herbert Kwok(12), Jay Wong(12), Josh Granoff(12), Ryan Hothan(12)

CIS(theta) 2009-2010: 
Arthur Dysart(12), Devin Bramble(12), Jeremy Agostino(12), Steve Beller(12)

CIS(theta) 2008-2009: 
Marc Aldorasi(12), Mitchel Wong(12)

CIS(theta) 2007-2008: 
Chris Rai(12), Frank Kotarski(12), Nathaniel Roman(12)

CIS(theta) 1988-2007: 
A. Jorge Garcia, Gabriel Garcia, James McLurkin, Joe Bernstein, ... too many to mention here!
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Well, that's all folks!
Happy Linux Clustering, 
AJG

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