Dear reader,
The summer in Karlsruhe once again granted us with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. Perhaps this year again there will be a heat record put up in our region. In regards to heat: With this kind of weather, it is hard to imagine that the SCC powered high performance computer is being cooled with hot water. Amongst other things due to its sophisticated cooling concept the new building of the HPC system ForHLR II receives at the end of April the first place with the German Data Centre Prize in the category "newly-built energy and resource efficient data centres" (page 28). The title page of this issue features a part of the cooling technology of the ForHLR II. Professor Rudolf Lohner (to the right of the picture) proudly displays the prize.
It also heats up in a research work to simulate turbulent combustion processes. Not only do the temperatures play a role in this but especially the noises, the so-called combustion noise. Through the use of appropriate computer simulation one can find out how to significantly reduce this noise. The calculations for that are so complex that it calls for the use of a Supercomputer like the ForHLR at KIT (page 18).
In regards to the protection of personal data there are always some heated discussions and cooler heads are needed for the development of appropriate IT solutions and services. These have to justify the demands for collaboration within an international environment, do not hinder internal workflow and beyond that does not lose sight of the individual desires of the KIT employees. With a new IT-Self-Service, the SCC makes a central contribution (page 09).
Bernhard Neumair, Achim Streit