Mannheim (und Hans-Werner Meuer) ueber allesMannheim 10 jun 2000 Well, the Mannheim Supercomputer Conference has just celebrated its 15 years of life as Uwe Harms said in his 'semi-serious' speech, it goes back to the SUPRENUM times (who among the readers reminds this German designed and assembled Parallel Computer based on Motorola off-the-shelf processors, aborted shortly after its birth?) Incidentally, Uwe Harms pointed out the fact that the new,efficient and good looking Rosen Garten Kongress Center in Mannheim was selected as the venue of the Conference (instead of the old University) also because of the quality of the toilet paper: an unusual perspective, anybody has ever thought of writing a sort of 'Guide Michelin' of the Conference Centers Rest-Rooms? It might be an interesting reading.
Not speaking German (either the English part of the Conference increases or we all will have to learn German, which, incidentally, is a beautiful, at times difficult, language). I only attended the first half-day (called the Europa Day) and found out that attendance is increasing (over 260 registrants this time), the atmosphere is the right one ( good spirit, feeling of belonging to a very active and dynamic community, desire of sharing experiences and expectations, joy of seeing each other among old friends, excellent Agenda, all those things,shortly, that you don't find any longer in many other European and Over-seas Conferences...)
The TOP500, of course, plays an important role in the whole Agenda: many are eager to see where they are (in terms of ranking): some Vendors and Users must be disappointed, since their Systems may perform exceptionally well when it comes to real applications and still show a peak performance (Rmax) which is far from the top 10 or 20 or even 50. One is led to think that, when the time of measurements and ranking comes, some of the leading installations just add the quantity of processors necessary to 'maintain the position'.
An interesting expansion and refinement of the Top 500 could be the integration of Real World Applications Performance Parameters: it might lead to dramatically (at times unexpected) new perspectives and, absit injuria verbis (as the Latins said), the list might appear more realistic.
Gene Amdhal was the key-note Speaker, a very distinguished old style Gentleman representing most of the History of Computers: 'quo vadis Technology?' was the title of his presentation. Through the analysis of previous technologies he came to the honest conclusion that it is difficult to say today where the Technology will lead in ten years from now. During the last ten years. we have been the spectators of so many changes, shifts and advances that nobody would dare,realistically, to make a forecast. In a certain sense, Gene interpreted our thoughts and has been our authoritative spokesman.
Mannheim and Prof. Meuer, finally: the City welcomed the Delegates with a fantastic weather (a bit too warm, though), flowers, refreshing fountains and a wealth of fresh asparagus (spargeln, for the German speaking readers, it is the right season of the year). Hans Werner Meuer was,as usual, a perfect Land Lord: competent, dynamic, cheerful, enthusiastic: and supported by a very efficient small staff, now a fully tested Conference mechanism always smiling and available.
The international participation grows,year after year: this year two side-events were preceeding the Conference itself, a Sun-Microsystems seminar on Education, and an RCI Executive Conference on 'Integrated Science-Engineering Modeling in Aerospace and Automotive'.
Giacomo Polosa |
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