Problem-solving in High Performance Computing

Introduction: data center and high-end computing

Data center at a glance

If you are looking for a pitch, a one-liner for how to define data centers, then you might as well call them the modern power plants. They are the equivalent of the old, sooty coal factories that used to give the young, enterpreneurial industrialist of the mid 1800s the advantage he needed over the local tradesmen in villages. The plants and their laborers were the unsung heroes of their age, doing their hard labor in the background, unseen, unheard, and yet the backbone of the revolution that swept the world in the nineteenth century.

Fast-forward 150 years, and a similar revolution is happening. The world is transforming from an analog one to a digital, with all the associated ...