Back in action

It's been quite a while since my last post, mostly on account of my senior thesis in economics, which is finally complete and turned in. In the mean time, a lot has happened on several fronts. A messed up data stream at WRTC has pretty much killed the 'online' aspect of The QuadCast (short of plugging a radio in to a computer, there is no easy way to capture the stream, at least, not one as effortless as a cron job and a streamripper). The cluster is progressing quite well, at least in terms of hardware. We finally have had our air conditioner repaired (evidently a component of one of the two compressors had failed) and it's producing cold air (but I am still nervous about how well the hot air will return to it from 61A). We have received our new cisco fiber ethernet switch, and both the fibre channel and ethernet multimode patch cables have all been installed. We have had our network appropriately subnetted and configured logically (more about that later) and the system is actually turned on and running. All in all, we're way behind schedule but looking pretty good going forward. With any luck, it will actually turn out something during my tenure! Oh, as one other last aside, we managed to find a buyer for our older Alphacluster which is kind of cool. It's not often that you get to earn a profit for your department.

I'll fill in all of the gaps of this soon, along with new pictures and details as soon as I find the time to really buckle down. I'll tackle it in a few posts over the course of the next few days.