Greetings!
The time has come for another update on the combined HPC purchase. Penguin continues to work on the manufacture and initial testing of the federated cluster, and appear to be on track for timely delivery. We’ll be verifying this with a site visit to Penguin’s factory near the end of January. We’ve also been making electrical and cooling preparations in the Rich data center, and are on track to have that complete in advance of the arrival of equipment.
We have also been making progress towards the acquisition and setup of equipment to be used for “early testing”, and anticipate it’s availability early/mid February.
We’ve also hired the new Systems Support Specialist 2 (and rehired for another SSS-2 position previously assigned to PACE). We are beginning the interview process for the new SSS-3 position, and still have the hiring process of a Research Technologist 2 to go.
We’ve also started a planning & budgeting process for future growth of the federation. Please contact me if you have plans, or know of anybody who does, for additional HPC systems in the next 18 months. A component of this planning process is a new HPC building. We continue to work towards this goal, and are developing a plan to satisfy demands for HPC space in the interim.
Neil Bright