[Beowulf] [OT] HPC and University IT - forum/mailing list?

[Bill Rankin]

On Aug 14, 2006, at 12:28 AM, Brian Dobbins wrote:

> Echoing Mark's reply, it seems to me that a lot of the volume IS from
> people who are in an academic environment and wrestle with the issues
> therein. My two cents would be that I think the wide variety of
> experience and ideas here only helps when it comes to getting good
> pointers or solutions to a problem plaguing one of us in a University
> setting.

Absolutely - there is a huge portion of this list that comes from an  
academic IT background.  That's why I figured this was a good place  
to make some initial inquiries. :)

>   Are there problems so specific to the higher education realm
> that you think they'd benefit from their own forum?

Not so much that would benefit from their own forum, but there are a  
lot of issues that are not directly related to the construction and  
technical operation of clusters, but rather more administrative/ 
organizational in nature.

Things like:

- integration of a cluster into a larger University IT infrastructure  
(storage, authentication, policies, et. al.)
- funding models (central funds, grant based) both for equipment and  
personnel.
- centralized research IT versus local departmental/school support.
- education and training
- deployment issues (who pays F&M?)
- sustainability and growth

Some of these topics have content that would be appropriate for this  
list, some not-so-much.  There are also some people I know that would  
be interested in participating in the conversation, but not about  
general Beowulfery.


> So if it were a democratic process, I'd vote to keep it here, but if a
> new list/site is created, I'll go wherever the information is.

I just wanted to try and avoid throwing a lot of off-topic posts onto  
this list.

> (How
> many subscribers are on this list now anyways?  The www.beowulf.org
> website says, "Over 3,000 researchers, engineers, students, and  
> software
> developers have participated in these online discussions since 1996."
> but it doesn't say how many are subscribed now.)

That would be an interesting number to know.


Thanks for the feedback,

-bill


--
Bill Rankin, Ph.D.
Director, Cluster and Grid Technology Group
Center for Computational Science, Engineering and Medicine
Duke University

wrankin at duke.edu
ph: (919) 660-6561
fx: (919) 660-7070