A Photo Album of Europe
Because of several invitations from high-performance centers in
Europe and a presentation at an international conference,
John Towns, NCSA senior associate director for Scientific Computing
and Visualization, decided to make his version of the Grand Tour this March.
Evangelizing about the Alliance and NCSA were priorities as well as
exploring opportunities for collaborations.
First stop was Finland's Center for
Scientific Computing
(CSC), located in Espoo. CSC is a Finnish national service center
specializing in scientific computing and communications.
|
Towns made a presentation to the center staff about NCSA and
the Alliance. Shown here are Kimmo Koski, manager of the
operational section of CSC, and Towns.
|
 |
Next stop -- The Netherlands. Stichting
Academisch Rekencentrum
Amsterdam (SARA) is a Dutch center of
computing expertise that offers high-performance computing and infrastructure
services as well as networks, databases, and facility management.
 |
Towns participated in the unveiling of
SARA's new Origin2000 system.
Pictured here are Kees Nieuwenhuis (on left), managing director of SARA, and Towns.
|
Driving from SARA to his final stop gave Towns a chance to view some sights
from his rental car. Daring to snap a photo while at the wheel, he offers a
view of a rainy landscape somewhere in Switzerland.
He also worked in a break to explore the sights. Towns took to the hills and discovered
Bosgo-Gurin, a mountain hamlet in rural Switzerland. (below right)
Final stop on the Towns tour was Switzerland.
Prior to his presentation to the 25th SPEEDUP Workshop in Cadro-Lugano, Switzerland,
Towns visited the Swiss Center for Scientific Computing (CSCS),
the national center of excellence for scientific computing in Switzerland.
Part of ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, CSCS
is located in Manno, in southern Switzerland.
The majority of staff are engineers and experts in the various
scientific computing application fields.
The SPEEDUP
society brings together all disciplines of research, development, and
application in the fields of high-performance computing and
computational sciences in Switzerland and abroad.
The Society is dedicated to promoting high-performance
computing as a tool for the Swiss academic and industrial communities.
|
Shown here giving a talk at CSCS, Towns also presented at the SPEEDUP Workshop,
which had sessions about trends in hardware architecture, software
infrastructure, libraries and tools, HPC center products and services,
user requirements, and performance evaluation.
|
 |
A few more images of a Towns' favorite site: Bosgo-Gurin in Switzerland.
