Researchers at the University of Alberta are trying to set up the country's largest supercomputer by hooking up all the research computers at Canadian universities into a gigantic, virtual supercomputer. Though the tech is easy, there's tons of social engineering to be done in order to convince other institutions to let the U of A people use their machines at a given time.
It's funny that these folks haven't yet twigged to the fact that there is enough computing power on campus to accomplish the same end, in dorm rooms, in labs and in libraries, and with a higher-speed network, too. It's a disconnect in the thinking of adminstrators and academics, who are accustomed to a top-down, grown-up approach to their work: how can they trust their precious computation to "unmanaged" computers in dorms and libraries? Nevermind that the ratio of administrators-to-CPU-cycles in the unwashed computational skid-row dormnets is higher than any lab's, allowing for massive redundancy to account for drop-offs, malice and other unpredictable elements — instead, these folks are intent on building one, big-ass, deterministic supercomputer.
(via /.)
