CUG 2007 Technical Conference – Report by the President (May 21, 2007)

 

The 2007 Cray User Group (CUG) Technical Conference - “New Frontiers” was hosted by The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington, USA. Hank Heeb and his very capable aid Katie Gibbs were this year’s conference Local Arrangements Coordinators (LAC). The folks at Boeing did a great job in preparing for the conference and organizing the various activities. It was a terrific CUG from the very start. Seattle and its surrounding area were beautiful; the weather was great, the variety of restaurants was unbelievably good, and there were so many exciting things to see and do.

 

This year’s program ran four full days (mainly three tracks wide) and consisted of over 70 presentations. It was another year of fantastic support by Cray Inc.; they provided nearly 50 people during the week (executives, technical personal, etc) and made themselves available throughout the program. The two Keynote speaker presentations “High Performance Computing in Aerospace” and “Science and Modeling of Puget Sound – A View From Beneath the Surface” fit nicely in with the conference theme. The tutorials, technical presentations, SIG meetings, and BOFs seem to meet with everyone’s expectation. Cray User Group (CUG) Conference Services did another excellent job in managing the CUG office and in helping to keep things running smoothly. Many of the conference proceedings are already posted on the CUG web site and will be distributed shortly.

 

The Cray User Group is especially grateful to Cray Inc. for their ongoing support as our primary conference sponsor. Thanks also go out to our Platinum Level sponsor (AMD) for helping to support the CUG Night Out, to our Gold Level sponsors (Portland Group Inc., DataDirect Networks, and BlueArc) for the conference breakfasts and lunches, and to our Silver Level sponsors (DRC and Mitrionics) for snacks during the breaks. Sponsorship was at an all time high, which in turn reduced CUG’s overall expenses and helped hold down the registration fees.

 

As for the CUG Night Out, The Royal Argosy Dinner Cruise was the perfect choice.  It fit so well with the conference location, the atmosphere was great, the on-board activities were fabulous - everyone had a wonderful time. Many conference attendees have stated that it was one of the best CUG Night Out they have ever experienced. The buses supplied by Boeing to get everyone to and from the waterfront were a nice added touch. People will remember the CUG 2007 Night Out for quite sometime.

 

I’d like to express my thanks to Hank Heeb and his wonderful Boeing team for all their hard work in preparing for and hosting the 2007 Seattle CUG. In addition, my thanks go out to the CUG Board of Directors, the Program Committee, and the Cray Liaisons for their continued outstanding support. The positive attitude, determination, foresight, attention for detail, and time of everyone involved has resulted in another very successful CUG Technical conference. I’m honored to be working with so many wonderful people.

 

 

CUG 2008 will be held  May 5-8, 2008 in Helsinki, Finland.. We are pleased to have the Finland Supercomputer Center, CSC, be the host of that technically packed program. The theme for the 2008 conference is “Crossing the Boundaries”.

I look forward to meeting you at the May 2008 conference in Helsinki.

David J. Gigrich
CUG President
The Boeing Company

david.j.gigrich <at> boeing.com