OHIO SUPERCOMPUTER CENTER TOUR WITH MIT ALUMNI CLUB OF CENTRAL OHIO
This our tour guide Chase Eyster, Business Development Representative at the Center. He works with academic, nonprofit, goverment, and commercial researchers, often the initial contact for clients accessing the Center. He has worked for the Center since 2016, and has 30+ year experience in the steel, pharmaceutical and synthetic fiber industries. He is a 1986 graduate ofr Ohio State University.
For the tour we were provided headsets. This was necessary because of the high ambient noise level from cooling systems. We could ask questions using our voice-activated microphones. This also allowed us to spread out and spend extra time on individual points of interest.
The Center provides its services without charge for researchers with any affiliation with Ohio State University, for moderate intensity resource use, and has discounted rates for heavier use.
Mr. Eyster lifted a floor tile, to give a view thourgh glass of the network of signal and power cables, and cooling plumbing that spans the entire facility.
At any time three generations of data processors is operational. About every four years, the oldest one is retired, and a current generation replacement is installed.
This bank of equipment racks houses current generation CPUs. They are refrigerant cooled (note the refridgerant line coming down from the ceiling)
Each processor arragy is named for a notable person in the supercomputer field.>/p>
In addition to processor banks, there are high speed storage modules (RAM), and mass storage modules containing multiple hard disk drives.
The OSC partners with a similar facility in Cleveland to perform real-time backup of both facilities' data.