September 2013 - NewsBytes

Katie Antypas to Head NERSC Services Department

Katie Antypas, who has led NERSC’s User Services Group since October 2010, has been named as the new Services Department head, effective Sept. 23. Antypas succeeds Francesca Verdier, who will serve as allocations manager until her planned retirement in June 2014. Read More

Energy.Gov: 10 Questions for a Scientist: Erich Strohmaier

In a supercomputing edition of the Department of Energy's "10 Questions" series, Berkeley Lab's Future Technologies Group Lead Erich Strohmaier discusses the evolution of the TOP500 list, his own career and where the field of high performance computing is going next. Read More.

ESnet Staff Featured in Podcast About Network Performance

Nobody owns the Internet. It’s essentially a global collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet. When everything moves as it should, it’s easy to marvel at how seamlessly these networks work together. But when there is a problem, it’s really hard for engineers to pinpoint the source. This is where perfSONAR comes in. In this podcast from Packet Pushers, ESnet’s Brian Tierney and Nick Buraglio (who will officially join ESnet Oct. 7) discuss how this open-source package of networking tools pinpoints and solve problems that may span multiple networks and international boundaries. ESnet led the international collaboration that developed perfSONAR. The tool is currently deployed in over 100 locations around the world. Read More.

Bringing Energy Efficiency to HPC

The ability of high performance computers (HPCs) to solve complex applications has risen exponentially since their introduction in the 1960s—along with their electricity use. Many HPCs require more than a megawatt of electricity to operate, and annual electricity costs can run into millions of dollars. As the use of HPCs became more widespread, Berkeley Lab researchers saw the need to improve their energy efficiency. Thus, a grassroots collaboration—the Energy Efficient High Performance Working Group—was born. The group, which includes Computational Research Division’s (CRD's) John Shalf and Erich Strohmaier, aimed to promote energy-efficient computing best practices and to drive improvements in energy performance of HPC systems. Learn how their efforts have paid off.  Read More

Video: What is Big Data?

In the latest Berkeley Lab video glossary entry, Greg Bell, head of DOE’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), explains how big data is transforming science. Watch the Video