Supercomputers, fishing for information

[ethan at 757.org]

> I’m looking to have to do something to get 3-phase for the IBM 4331 
> gear.  I haven’t quite added up the power requirements yet but I’m 
> guessing its going to be in the 10-15kVA range.  Since the power to all 
> of the gear is really split between 3 loads (string of 4 3340 drives, 
> 3803 control unit + 2 3420 tape drives and 2821 control uint + 1403 
> printer + 2540 card reader/punch) I need to figure out if it’s best to 
> have one big converter or 3 smaller ones.  It’s unlikely that I’d be 
> running all of the peripherals at once.  The 4331 itself runs off of 
> single phase 220v.

I keep thinking about moving my J90 series box from Norfolk storage up to 
Northern Virginia -- I've been tempted to ping some of the lower tier data 
centers to see if they have space that can't be filled due to changes in 
technology. Maybe I could beg to get a low rent on some space to store the 
system and have the three 220v connections to fire it up once in a while 
and try to get the OS installed again. I have no idea if it could happen. 
The facility I work in probably wouldn't do it but it's a bit more modern. 
Some of the older ones can't use all of the space because the density of 
hardware climbed so much that there isn't enough power/cooling to match.



--
Ethan O'Toole