SC15 Releases Short Video on Why High Performance Computing Matters to PayPal

As one of the world's largest internet payment companies, PayPal handles massive amounts of sensitive data.  Hear from Ryan Quick, principal architect for advanced technologies from PayPal, on how they strive to use high performance computing to make every day online transactions something you don't even have to think twice about.

According to Quick, handling such massive amounts of data is like drinking from a fire hose.  He stresses how they aim to make every transaction a smooth and safe process whether dealing with regulations from country to country, state to state, or transaction to transaction. In 2014, PayPal moved $228 billion in 26 currencies across more than 190 nations, generating a total revenue of $7.9 billion.

This is another chapter in a series of short videos focusing on why HPC is important and of critical value to society. It is part of a three-year SC "HPC Matters" campaign.  Click here to view the entire HPC Matters video library.

Scientific Visualization Deadline Extended to August 21st

SC15’s Visualization and Data Analytics Showcase Program provides a forum for the year's most instrumental movies in HPC.  Six finalists will compete for the Best Visualization Award, and each finalist will present his or her movie during a dedicated session at SC15 in a 15-minute presentation. Movies are judged based on how their movie illuminates science, by the quality of the movie, and for innovations in the process used for creating the movie.

Review and selection process:
Submissions needed to include a movie (up to 250MB in size) and a short paper (up to four pages including references).  The short paper should describe the scientific story conveyed by the movie, how the visualization helps scientific discovery, and the "state-of-the-practice" information behind making the movie.

Each submission will be peer reviewed by the Visualization and Data Analytics Showcase Committee. Criteria for revision include:

•     Compelling visualization

•     Visualizing data involving HPC in a significant way (whether through simulation or data analytics)

•     Meaningful and compelling science story

•     Description of visualization techniques necessary to accomplish the movie

Finally, submissions should support SC15's overall theme "HPC transforms.”

Web Submissions: https://submissions.supercomputing.org/

Email contact: vis_showcase@info.supercomputing.org

Birds-of-a-Feather Submissions Are Now Open

SC Birds-of-a-Feather sessions are always popular with attendees.

Don't just observe, ENGAGE! The Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions are among the most interactive, popular, and well-attended sessions of the SC Conference Series. The BOF sessions provide a non-commercial, dynamic venue for conference attendees to openly discuss current topics of focused mutual interest within the HPC community with a strong emphasis on audience-driven discussion, professional networking and grassroots participation.

SC15 will continue this tradition with a full schedule of exciting, informal, interactive sessions focused around a variety of special topics of mutual interest.

BOF sessions are an excellent opportunity to connect and interact with other attendees with whom you share a mutual interest. SC15 will feature BOF sessions about many HPC-related topics such as accelerators, programming models, big data, and education.

Important Date:

Submission Deadline: July 31, 2015

For web submissions: click here

For questions contact: bofs@info.supercomputing.org

Call for Interest in SC Leadership Roles

SC18 Conference General Chair
Nominations for the SC18 General Chair are now open and will close on June 9, 2015. To nominate someone, or to nominate yourself, for the general Chair position, send an email giving the candidate’s name, a short paragraph describing how the candidate meets the following criteria, and a recent curriculum vitae (CV) that highlights professional and SC experience.

• Experience managing large, complex projects in which the people executing the project do not all report directly to the manager
• SC or equivalent experience, for example, head of two or more previous committees
• Visionary in our community
• Able to set strategic direction (and delegate its execution)
• Willing and able to make the conference her/his top priority for the year of the conference
• Experience managing a multimillion dollar budget

Member of the SC Steering Committee
Nominations for two openings on the SC Steering committee are now open and will close on  September 8, 2015. To nominate someone, or to nominate yourself, for a position on the Steering Committee, send an email giving the candidate¹s name, a short paragraph describing how the candidate meets the following criteria, and a recent curriculum vitae (CV) that highlights professional and SC experience.

• Visionary in our community
• Familiarity with, and passion for, the SC conference
• Willingness to be an active and engaged advocate for the SC Conference community
• Willing and able to commit time to attend three one-day in-person meetings and monthly one-hour teleconferences.

Please send nominations for either position to nominations@info.supercomputing.org.

SC15 Housing is Open - Reserve Your Austin Hotel Now

Many of the hotels are within walking distance of the convention center.

Hotel reservations on the SC15 hotel reservation site are now open through October. Reserve now for the best selection of rooms and hotels before they're sold out (and they will sell out)! As always, we’ve tried to locate most SC15 hotel rooms within walking distance of the convention center, and conference busing will be provided to any that are farther away.

Important Dates and Deadlines

• March 2, 2015 – Hotel reservation system opens
• September 20, 2015 – Last day for submitting occupancy lists for exhibitor room blocks
• October 16, 2015 – Last day for making hotel reservations
• October 16, 2015 – Last day for canceling hotel reservations with no penalty
• October 17 through November 4, 2015 – Late requests will be accommodated if possible
• 72 hours (3 days) prior to scheduled arrival – Last chance to cancel without also paying charges for first night

For more info on SC15 housing, click here!

The SC14 Massachusetts Green Team Explains Why the Student Cluster Competition Matters

The Massachusetts Great Team hard at work at SC14.

"The SC Student Cluster Competitions allow students to learn and advance their education and knowledge, supplying an extraordinary, unique and concrete experience in the field of supercomputing. The Student Cluster Competition at SC14 provided a real, hands-on glimpse into the world of supercomputing. Scaling tests and optimizations allowed the competitor such as myself to say what’s working, what’s better, and best of all: why and how.

Where else could you manage and tweak your own supercomputer to squeeze out the extra flop of speed, and also immediately see the effect in both the LINPACK benchmark as well as the relevant application? SCC14 provided the environment and configuration for both the supercomputing experimentation as well as the delicious knowledge that yes, you had taken that extra step and found yourself at the top with the fastest supercomputer against a spectrum of the fastest."