In early October, MCS received and installed Chiba City, a linux cluster with 256 computing nodes and a number of other systems for storage, visualization, and management.

Chiba City is a project that involves nearly everyone in our research division as well as many people outside of it. It's a community effort. In the spirit of an old-fashioned barnraising, we decided to try to build the system as a community effort as well, and asked for volunteers to help build it. Over fifty people signed up to help - students and scientists, physicists and computer scientists, administrators and programmers.

The barnraising was a great success. The cluster was built over the course of two days, and was running code less than an hour after the last computer was plugged in.

These snapshots capture a bit of the fun and energy that went into the Chiba Barnraising, and also depict the activities that happened before the installation.

You may also want to check the time-lapse video of the event.

		Choose a picture size:
Picture Albums		Thumbnails	Small	Medium		Updated
Before Chiba		thumb	small	medium		7 Oct 1999
The Racks Arrive		thumb	small	medium		7 Oct 1999
The Data Grid nodes arrive		thumb	small	medium		7 Oct 1999
The VA systems arrive		thumb	small	medium		7 Oct 1999
Building the Data Grid		thumb	small	medium		11 Oct 1999
Building the First Chiba Town		thumb	small	medium		14 Oct 1999
The IBM systems arrive		thumb	small	medium		15 Oct 1999
Barn Raising, Day One		thumb	small	medium		18 Oct 1999
Barn Raising, Day Two		thumb	small	medium		19 Oct 1999