HPC Bingo

A big part of SC (Austin in 2015) is actually getting there. Most attendees will have to navigate the joys of long distance air travel. If you travel enough, or play the game wisely, you can secure frequent flyer elite status which helps make the air travel more bearable. Here is a version of elite status bingo for HPC. I listed some categories and "achievements" required for each. Can you claim elite HPC status?

HPC System User category

There have been lots of systems in HPC over the years, but we should stick to options that even a recent recruit to HPC might be able to claim. You can award yourself this category if you have used (logged into and run or compiled code) each of these systems:

• IBM Power system
• Cray XT, XE, or XC
• SGI shared memory system - Origin, Altix or UV
• x86 cluster
• A system with any one of Sparc, vector, or ARM, GPU, Phi, or FPGA

HPC Programmer category

Award yourself this category if you have written programs to run on a HPC system in each of these:

• Fortran 77
• Fortran 90 or later
• C
• MPI
• OpenMP
• Any one of CUDA, OpenACC, OpenCL, Python, R, Matlab

HPC Talker/Buzzword category

Buzzwords seem to be an integral part of HPC. To be awarded this category, you must have used each of these in talks (powerpoint etc.) since SC14:

• Big Data
• Any of green computing, energy efficient computing, or power aware computing
• One of my HPC analogies?
• "it's all about the science" (but then just talked about the HPC like everyone else!!)
•  Any reference to "FLOPS are free, data movement is hard" or similar
• Exascale

HPC Conference category

A very effective way of benefiting from the experience of the wider HPC community is by participating at appropriate HPC events. You can award yourself this category if you have attended each of these at least once:

• SC
• ISC
• A technology or vendor based user group (e.g., CUG, SGIUG, HP-CAST, etc.)
• A HPC centre industry partners meeting (eg., NCSA PSP, TACC STAR, etc.)
• Any one of HPCC Newport, Rice Oil & Gas HPC workshop, IDC HPC User Forum, HPCAC.

HPC System Size category

The HPC community spends a lot of time worrying about the size of supercomputers. to be awarded this category, you must have logged into each of these:

• A system listed in the top 10 of the Top500
• A system listed in the bottom 100 of the Top500
• A system of that could make the top 20 but that was never listed on the Top500

HPC Career category

There are lots of roles in the HPC world. There also are many types of organizations involved in HPC - not just the "users or vendors" nonsense that many sites spout. To be awarded this category, you must have been employed in at least 4 of these 5 options:

• HPC user in an HPC user organization. (Note that working at an HPC center or equivalent does NOT count.)
• HPC center or HPC service provider.
• HPC solution/technology supplier (hardware or software).
• A consulting or support service provider. (Note: does NOT count if employed directly by a HPC centre or HPC hardware vendor, or if the organisation had its own supercomputers - i.e., has to be a pure play consulting/service provider).
• Funding agency or equivalent.

Your HPC Elite Status ...

How many categories did you complete?

• 1 of the 6 categories = Bronze
• 2 of the 6 categories = Silver
• 3 of the 6 categories = Gold
• 4 of the 6 categories = Platium
• 5 of the 6 categories = Diamond
• 6 of the 6 categories = Liar

Post your "status" and completed categories in the comments box below, or tweet your scores to @hpcnotes.

Have fun playing!