xv
Acknowledgments
M
supercomputing business have contributed
to this book. Some of them have been in this business far longer
than we have, and they have provided valuable historical context for
Chapter1. Bill Kramer, NCSA’s Director of the Blue Waters Project, nearly
overwhelmed us with computing history books, but he had them readily
available and we read every one of them. Beth McKown, also from NCSA,
appeared one day with industrial letters of testimony that were surely hid-
den in a basement archive since 1995, but she knew where they were, and,
more importantly, that they would add insight in a way that may never
previously have been shared publicly. Hervé Mouren from France gra-
ciously counseled us at a Courtyard Marriott in Paris when we were in
self-imposed exile to create book strategy and content. He has inspired us
to further document the cultural and national reasons for specic-country
competencies and behavior. Additionally, the German and British legacy
on historical information related to World War II eorts on things which
eventually led to the computing business as we know it now have been
instrumental to illustrate the eort to enter the digital era.
On various occasions, we have discussed and acknowledged the cul-
tural and political challenges to industrial supercomputing that are
shared between Europe and the United States of America, which ulti-
mately led to both of us endeavoring to write a book. It has turned out
that writing and editing has been made easier since our vision for the
book was borne out of a need to reach a non-technical audience while not
embarrassing ourselves among our technical colleagues.
Michael Resch (Germany), Sang Min Lee (South Korea), and Hiroshi
Kawai (Japan) have willingly kept the faith regarding industrial super-
computing and have each pledged to continue the good work of our
International Industrial Supercomputing Workshop. Your support has
been both real and genuine.
xvi ◾ Acknowledgments
Dona Crawford, who co-chairs the U.S. Council on Competitiveness
HPC Advisory Committee and whose day-job is at Lawrence Livermore
National Lab in California, kindly agreed to add authorship and editing
to her already busy schedule. Without her, our readers would have very
little insight into the outreach of key federal supercomputing laboratories.
NCSA’s Private Sector Program partners and sta bought into the idea
of a contributed book, which would actually require them to provide their
own contributions. anks, team!
From Europe, we have, among others, relied on many of our friends in
the PRACE partnership for advanced computing in Europe. Very valuable
information and cases have been brought to us, which we have gratefully
used in this book. European colleagues like Francesc Subirada (BSC),
Stéphane Requena (Genci), Andreas Wierse (HLRS), Claudio Arlandini
(Cineca), Peter Michielse (SURFsara), and also Augusto Burgueno-Arjona
(European Commission—who kept insisting on linking PRACE with
industry) have directly or indirectly supported or inspired us in nishing
our endeavor. eir role was very important for us.
e most important acknowledgment is for our wives, Erika and Anke,
who have endured our solid hours and days at the computer patiently, qui-
etly, and kindly. Some of these hours were during family time and some
were well aer midnight. Our endless gratitude goes out to you!
And nally, we wish to acknowledge all of you in the supercomputing
business who have encouraged us to nish this book, and even dare us to
pursue a sequel. Your encouraging words are helpful—especially as you
suggest that no book like this has ever been written. Please buy copies for
yourselves and others, and continue to share with us your ideas of how to
bring HPC closer to non-technical readers.
Warmest regards,
Merle Giles and Anwar Osseyran
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