• Overview • Schedule • Awards • Birds-of-a-Feather • Disruptive Technologies • Doctoral Showcase • Event Maps • Masterworks • Panels • Papers • Posters • Scientific Visualization Showcase • State of the Practice • Student Cluster Competition • Competition Rules • SCC Teams • Selection Criteria • Information for Students • SCC Supporters • Tutorials • Workshops

SCC Rules

Rule Number One

Safety First. Equipment configurations are always subject to safety as first consideration. If it canNOT be done safely then it is UNacceptable. When in doubt, ask an SCC supervisor.

Power Budget

26 Amp Power Limit.
Teams will be provided with three 20 Amp 120V circuits (each with a soft limit of 13 Amps) on separate breakers. Two will be used for the competition cluster and neither may exceed the 13 Amp limit. The third may be used for electronics not related to the operation of the competition system (LCD, laptops, coffee maker, etc.) We will provide two APC AP7801 PDUs for the competition cluster to monitor the power usage. Any additional power strips or equipment needs to be supplied by the teams. For detailed information on the Competition PDUs, visit http://www.apc.com/resource/include/techspec_index.cfm?base_sku=AP7801 .

Hands off. No one can touch the equipment physically after the competition starts Monday morning with the HPCC benchmark runs. If there is a need to touch the equipment an official SCC supervisor needs to be called and will rule on the issue. The only exception is in keeping with Rule Number One: if an unsafe condition is found, anyone can power down the equipment, and an SCC supervisor must be called immediately afterwards.

Powered on at all times. All equipment used for running the HPCC benchmarks must be used when running the competition applications (i.e. You cannot run LINPACK on half the machine and then power up the whole system to run the competition applications).

No rebooting. ;Reboots are only necessary for hung or failed hardware. SCC supervisors must be notified before rebooting any hardware.

Benchmarking

HPCC. The HPC Challenge (http://icl.cs.utk.edu/hpcc/) will be used to score the benchmark portion of the Competition. A team may execute HPCC as many times as desired during the setup and benchmarking phase, but the HPCC run submitted for scoring will define the hardware baseline for the team.

HPL. The Competition will feature a Highest Linpack award for the team submitting the highest HPL score. Additional, independent HPL runs (outside the submitted HPCC run) may be considered for the Highest Linpack award if they are performed with exactly the same hardware powered on as used for HPCC run submitted for scoring. While eligible for the Highest Linpack award, independent HPL runs will NOT count toward the team’s overall score.

Applications

Input and output data. Input data for the competition applications will be provided by NFS over gigabit Ethernet. Output data will be received likewise. Teams are responsible for providing equipment necessary to transfer the application input and output data.

Assistance from others. Prior to the competition, teams are encouraged to work closely with vendor partners and domain scientists to understand their hardware and the competition applications. This is a wonderful learning opportunity for the students, and we hope team members, the supervisor, and vendor partners collaborate to maximize the educational impact. Once the competition starts, student teams will not be allowed to receive assistance from supervisors or vendor partners. The six team members will be on their own to work through cluster and application issues.