[Beowulf] How Can Microsoft's HPC Server Succeed?

[Scott Atchley]

On Apr 3, 2008, at 3:52 PM, Kyle Spaans wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:39 PM, Chris Dagdigian <dag at sonsorol.org>  
> wrote:
>> spew out a terabyte per day of raw data and many times that stuff  
>> needs to
>> be post processed and distilled down into different forms. A nice  
>> little
>> 8-core box running a shrink-wrap HPC product with a single support  
>> contact
>> could find a nice little niche in non-datacenter areas where  
>> significant
>> compute is needed nearby some other sort of dedicated instrument  
>> or device.
> ...
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Greg Byshenk <gbyshenk at byshenk.net>  
> wrote:
>>  a business will also have to find
>>  (and pay) someone to build and maintain the cluster.
>
>
> Forgive me perhaps for being naive, but why can't a knowledgeable
> teenager / college student be paid ~$10/hour plus on-call time to do a
> setup like this? Presuming they only need to hire someone to do
> setup/administration/support (and not the actual programming itself).

What if your data is sensitive or has HIPPA requirements? Do you want  
a part-timer having admin control of that data (regardless if it is  
Linux, Windows, or MacOSX)?

Scott