Considering Time in Designing Large-Scale Systems for Scientific Computing
This addresses the problem of optimizing HPC system design for scientific users, but it is incremental as it builds on existing CSCW work.
The paper tackles the lack of studies on how scientists interact with exascale high-performance computing (HPC) systems by using time as a lens for an ethnographic study, providing design considerations for future systems.
High performance computing (HPC) has driven collaborative science discovery for decades. Exascale computing platforms, currently in the design stage, will be deployed around 2022. The next generation of supercomputers is expected to utilize radically different computational paradigms, necessitating fundamental changes in how the community of scientific users will make the most efficient use of these powerful machines. However, there have been few studies of how scientists work with exascale or close-to-exascale HPC systems. Time as a metaphor is so pervasive in the discussions and valuation of computing within the HPC community that it is worthy of close study. We utilize time as a lens to conduct an ethnographic study of scientists interacting with HPC systems. We build upon recent CSCW work to consider temporal rhythms and collective time within the HPC sociotechnical ecosystem and provide considerations for future system design.