{"id":135633,"date":"2025-04-30T07:26:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T07:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/worlds-biggest-raspberry-pi-cluster-is-now-at-ucsb-the-current-uc-santa-barbara\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T07:26:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T07:26:56","slug":"worlds-biggest-raspberry-pi-cluster-is-now-at-ucsb-the-current-uc-santa-barbara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/worlds-biggest-raspberry-pi-cluster-is-now-at-ucsb-the-current-uc-santa-barbara\/","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s biggest Raspberry Pi cluster is now at UCSB | The Current – UC Santa Barbara"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A few years ago, as a demonstration of the power of a relatively simple technology, software giant Oracle built a cluster of 1,050 Raspberry<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> Pi 3iPB+ <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>computers. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Now Oracle\u2019s big cluster, the largest such assemblage ever built, has found a new home at UC Santa Barbara. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Computer science professors <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Chandra Krintz<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> and <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>Rich Wolski<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> received the cluster as a donation from Oracle,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> which had retired it from making the rounds at computer trade shows. The second largest Raspberry Pi cluster was built at Los Alamos National Laboratory and is half as big.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cThe Raspberry Pi was designed to function with the Internet of Things (IoT),\u201d said Wolski,  Duval Family Presidential Chair in Energy Efficiency.\u201cIt\u2019s used for experimentation and deployment of fairly basic systems.\u201d The devices are simple and inexpensive, operating on low amounts of power but can be programmed with a large ecosystem of open-source software.They are also compatible with a wide variety of hardware devices and sensors. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
The low-cost, low-power, credit-card sized machines are widely used, normally as individual units or in a small cluster of several units, to explore, learn and teach computing and programming, and to perform certain kinds of research-related computational tasks. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting device, but on the low end of performance,\u201d Wolski said. \u201cOracle decided to do an experiment by building a large collection of these things in a small package.\u201d The company would then ship the assembly to trade shows to show how effectively they were able to engineer a very big, very low-power, very low-technology system to run their software.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Known for doing technologically advanced things, <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>especially at the enterprise scale and in the cloud,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> Oracle wanted to show that they could also do really small things, and do them super-efficiently.. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cEventually, they moved on to bigger and better things, and (the Raspberry Pi assemblage)  wound up sitting in its crate in a warehouse,\u201d Wolski said. \u201cOne day, the head of Oracle Research came to visit our lab \u2014 because one of our graduate students was doing an internship at Oracle \u2014 and he saw that we had a small set of Raspberry Pis in our lab, which we use in our research and as a teaching tool. He took one look at our little collection and said, \u2018Do you need more Raspberry Pis?\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cIf you\u2019re an academic and someone says, \u2018Can I give you something?\u2019 the answer is always, \u2018Yes, absolutely, without another thought,\u2019\u201d Wolski said with a laugh. \u201cAnd then this massive cluster arrived at UCSB.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
The cluster was designed by former Oracle engineer Chris Benson, who is now at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Benson stepped in to help Krintz and Wolski set up the system. \u201cHe\u2019s been a world of help,\u201d Krintz said. \u201cHe has come to campus multiple times to guide and advise us on the system. It turns out that a lot of the things Oracle was doing depended on access to Oracle engineers internally, so we\u2019re now refactoring the machine to make it usable in a public institutional environment, with open-source software to enable broad access for students and others. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cChris put the technology together in a way that had never been done before,\u201d Krintz added. \u201cIt was coming to its end of life, and now it can live on in the service of computer science research and education here at UCSB.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Since it had to run for only a few hours at a trade show, the cluster was built differently than had it been built for doctoral research. \u201cWe have learned over the course of the past eight months what needs to be done to turn this very interesting experiment into something that is a sustainable piece of research infrastructure,\u201d Wolski said.  <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
The size of the Raspberry Pi cluster has created a few challenges, especially in terms of cooling. \u201cWe did not have sufficient air conditioning for something this big in Henley Hall, the mostly naturally air-cooled LEED Platinum home to the UCSB Institute for Energy Efficiency,\u201d Wolski said. \u201cWe initially thought that we would receive maybe 10 or 20 Raspberry Pis, 50 at the most. But we got 1,050<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>!<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cThe hardware runs at low voltages and, therefore, has a relatively cool heat footprint, but when more than 1,000 units are packed together as tightly as these are, which Oracle did to make the cluster as small as possible, heat can build up,\u201d Wolski said, adjustments had to be made to adapt the cooling system in Henley Hall.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cOracle built this Raspberry Pi cluster to demonstrate their ability in using relatively simple technology to run their highly complex software speaks to how fortunate we are to now have that same cluster \u2014 the largest in the world \u2014 at UCSB,” said John Bowers, the Fred Kavli Chair in Nanotechnology, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials, and director of the Institute for Energy Efficiency (IEE), where the Raspberry Pi cluster is housed. “I look forward to seeing what Chandra and Rich will accomplish with it going forward, both on the research front and in terms of the tremendous opportunity it provides students for studying the Internet of Things at a scale unmatched at perhaps any other university.\u201d  <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Since the Henley Hall AC upgrades, Krintz and Wolski have also developed safeguards to prevent overheating. If the temperature in the room starts to rise, emails and text messages go out. \u201cWe\u2019re using our own Internet of Things research system to monitor the system, which was never designed for unattended operation 24\/7. It\u2019s a great challenge and a great research and learning opportunity,\u201d Wolski said. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cNow, as part of our research efforts, we are figuring out what it means to make a long-lived, low-power data center,\u201d Krintz said. \u201cFor instance, we are developing new, intelligent scheduling techniques that place jobs across the system according to a heat budget. The system must also adapt to changes in voltage level that result from load on the power-distribution units. Our advances will account for these automatically to keep the system cool and balanced with regard to power draw.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Solving the problems around the cluster fits right into the mission of the RACELab (The Lab for Research on Adaptive Computing Environments) led by Krintz and Wolski, which is dedicated to studying the IoT from a systems perspective. \u201cThe Internet of Things requires having computational infrastructure in strange places, such as in a closet in your home or a back room in a Starbucks, so it will have to be low power and be easy to use \u2014 to make your coffee, for example,\u201d Krintz noted. \u201cThat\u2019s the key point.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cNow, as part of our research efforts, we are figuring out what it means to make a long-lived, low-power data center,\u201d Krintz said. \u201cFor instance, we are developing new, intelligent scheduling techniques that place jobs across the system according to a heat budget. The system must also adapt to changes in voltage level that result from load on the power-distribution units. Our advances will account for these automatically to keep the system cool and balanced with regard to power draw.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Solving the problems around the cluster fits right into the mission of the RACELab (The Lab for Research on Adaptive Computing Environments) led by Krintz and Wolski, which is dedicated to studying the IoT from a systems perspective. \u201cThe Internet of Things requires having computational infrastructure in strange places, such as in a closet in your home or a back room in a Starbucks, so it will have to be low power and be easy to use \u2014 to make your coffee, for example,\u201d Krintz noted. \u201cThat\u2019s the key point.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
Students in the lab are hard at work adapting the system, which is now referred to fondly as \u201cGodzilla Pi.\u201d (A scaled-down version of the cluster is referred to as the  \u201dTinyTart.\u201d) \u201cThey are building 3D visualizations for augmented reality, so that we can zoom in and say, \u2018What\u2019s this Pi doing, and when?\u2019\u201d Wolski said. \u201cWe\u2019d love to be able to click or zoom in on it and have it tell me, \u2018I\u2019m sick. This is my clock rate. This is what I\u2019m running. This is the last time I was well,\u2019 because we need a kind of health-and-status report at scale. We want to be able to look at any part of the whole 3D architecture and instantly identify any problems.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\u201cIn our lab, we build the system software, we investigate new kinds of systems for managing IoT deployments, and we\u2019re very interested in how we go from very small devices \u2014 even smaller than Raspberry Pis \u2014 all the way up to very large devices like the cloud,\u201d Wolski said. \u201cA lot of our students are using this cluster as a large-scale machine to simulate lots of small machines working together. We also use it as a test bed for things that we’re going to deploy in the wild.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
The networked computing power of the giant Raspberry Pi cluster makes it possible for their lab to study these power and heat issues for the Internet of Things at a greater scale than anybody else in the world,<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> providing an experience for students that, in many respects, is unique among universities. \u201c<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>It\u2019s kind of remarkable,\u201d  Wolski said. \u201cOracle has provided us and the UCSB computer science research community with a rare and valuable opportunity.”<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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