1) Phil Hughes is the CEO of Clustered Systems Company, Inc. and has a background in engineering projects including nuclear sub simulators and semiconductor marketing. 2) He had a breakthrough idea to make a multi-dimensional high-speed telecommunications switch called the BOSS 1000, but the market changed and customers went bankrupt during its development. 3) Hughes then founded Clustered Systems to develop efficient liquid cooling technologies for high-performance computing and data centers, achieving very high power densities and low power usage effectiveness.

1. May 2013
© 2013 Clustered Systems Company, Inc
Life and Times
Phil Hughes
CEO, Clustered Systems Company, Inc.
phil@clusteredsystems.com
415 613 9264

2. Early Days
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 2
The perfect job…..
@ 4 years old
Teen Machines

3. Past Projects
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 3
Blue Streak Nuclear Sub Flight Simulator
Concorde Sim
Tornado Autopilot
CNC Lathe

4. Jointing the Dark Side:
Semiconductor Marketing & how I escaped
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 4
Then….
Futurebus
(IEEE 896)
Quickring
SC/MP Acorn ROMs
ASICS for PC &
many others

5. Eureka Moment
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 5
Make Quickring multi-
dimensional and do it properly
Raise money, assemble team
….. and $110M later….
…the BOSS 1000 2.5 Tb/s SONET/SDH switch
with multi-fault tolerant switching network

6. Slough of Despond & Exit Strategy
 BOSS 1000 a brilliant
technical success but
customers were penniless
(e.g. Worldcom)
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 6
 Find alternative applications for technology
 Video Servers
 Fibre Channel switches
 Ethernet/IP switch routers
 Raised funding but no market traction (too early)

7. Introducing..
Clustered Systems Company
 Founded to target the HPC market
 Designed system & proposed to LLNL but…
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 7
How will you
cool it?
 Developed cooling
concept then..
Do cooling or switching,
you can’t do both
Mark Seager
Carl Amdahl We chose cooling (cheaper)

8. Results
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 8
 Prototype system with 2
phase contact cooling
technology
 Licensed technology to Liebert, Inc. for
XDS which “wins” Chill-Off II
 Built 100kW rack installed
at SLAC
 $3M DoE grant
 Intel 130W CPUs

9. Efficient Liquid Cooling offers:
HPC
 Very high power density which
eases communication
 0.3 PFLOP/ rack now (100kW)
 Design is complete
 0.75 PFLOP (200kW) feasible
 With today’s GPUs
Data Center
 Very high power density which
allows DCs to be much smaller
 FB Prineville 75 W/sq ft
 CSys rack 4,000 W/sq ft
October 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 9
 PUE 1.07 (mech & elec) measured at SLAC
 No air movement so systems can be placed virtually anywhere
 Systems are totally silent (no more OSHA issues)
“Game Changer”
Jack Pouchet, VP
Exascale, Emerson
“Exascale enabler”
John Gustafson

10. Will liquid cooling displace air?
Air
 Air control experts will
fight change as their
skills’ value declines
 90% of DC HVAC
hardware is for air only
 Big is beautiful and
shows solidity (think of
banks)
Liquid
 Green field costs are 1/3
to ½ that of air
 TCO reduced up to 50%
 Existing space can be
used, eliminates long
term $ investment risk
 Faster depreciation = tax
advantages
March 17 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 10
Change will happen but it will have to be
driven from top down

11. Futures
 HPC and DC infrastructures will converge
 PUE < 1.0 as technology for energy recovery
from low grade heat matures
 Tree networks will be replaced by meshes
 Multi path, multi-fault tolerant, deadlock, livelock
free, autonomous congestion avoidance, minimal
failure domains
 Cross sectional b/w may vary with application
 SDN granularity will be 1:1
 Fail in place will be commonplace
March 17 2011 Clustered Systems Company, Inc 11