Kurt Grandis

Another Amazon EC2 Beowulf Cluster Joins The Grid

March 21, 2008 – 10:21 pm
Have you ever been working with a dataset, started crunching some numbers and said to yourself, "damn, I should distribute this across the cluster," only to realize that your cluster is already saturated with your last job and will be for the next day or two? If you answered yes, then we probably share the same data-craving/slicing/mining sickness.Well the above scenario happens to me and often enough for me to pose the question to others. I could simply invest in a larger cluster --- an expensive investment, especially since the scenario often only requires bursts of compute time. This would make an on-demand cluster a perfect solution. On-Demand Beowulf I had heard some chatter about Peter Skomoroch's ElasticWulf and found myself walking through his series on creating an on-demand beowulf cluster using Amazon's EC2. You can find his very helpful posts here and here (with another on the way). ElasticWulf is ...

Tags: Distributed Computing, Python

Posted in Distributed Computing, Python | 1 Comment »

FogBugz: One Hot Ride

March 19, 2008 – 11:48 pm
So, a few months ago I came across a video by Fog Creek demonstrating the latest version of their project management software FogBugz. Wow. It looked great and appeared to have many of the features I had been searching for across the project management software terrain. It was not until a couple of weeks ago that I actually set up a trial account. I signed up and began configuring FogBugz to manage a small project that would likely run its full course over three to four 2 week iterations. Let me start by saying that FogBugz has been a pleasure to work with. Simple and Intuitive The folks over at Fog Creek have done a good job minimizing the amount of clicks required to accomplish some basic tasks like creating new cases/features/bugs. Lists of bugs and features can be viewed by various characteristics through filters or by easily accessible reports. It might seem ...

Tags: Software Engineering

Posted in Software Engineering | 1 Comment »

Welcome

March 17, 2008 – 11:09 pm
I intend to use this blog to discuss software engineering, entrepreneurship, and everything in between. I love my craft, from mucking around with new languages and APIs to exploring the processes and practices we use to build and deliver products. The entire nature of software engineering and how we define our professionalism are of interest to me, which I hope we can discuss. The other major focus of this blog is entrepreneurship and its intersection with technology. I happen to live (and work) in North Carolina near Research Triangle Park (RTP). It's no Silicon Valley, but it is a burgeoning technology center with a number of existing players. The area is filled to the brim with entrepreneurial spirit --- something I have found quite exciting. I intend to discuss some of the goings-on and available resources in the RTP area. So, that is the range of topics you might expect to see here ...

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »