Not ready for a rocking chair: Bill Buzbee's exit interview
Remembering the past, envisioning the future . . .
 Bill Buzbee
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by Lynda Lester
What was the biggest challenge facing SCD when you got here?Well, SCD was -- oh, I'll say ... let's see, SCD was in ...
Tatters?(laughter) I'm tempted to say, in "ill repute" ... it needed to focus a lot more on providing good service to the users and establish a close and mutually satisfying relationship with the user community. Computing-wise we were in good shape, because an X-MP4 had just been installed and the Mass Storage System was just coming into production. And SCD was already into networking and remote access for university users. The one area I felt needed most attention was getting close to the users. So we did that.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing SCD today?SCD has several challenges with regard to the atmospheric sciences community. Our biggest challenge is to provide the computing capability that one finds in other parts of the world, which is very difficult with the antidumping decision that was made. But there's hope. We've seen some pretty good results from highly parallel processors in the last few months, and it's possible that within the next year, climate modelers at NCAR may be able to simulate 100 years in a week. That's a nice improvement over the six weeks that it takes today. Certainly the SGI T3E is performing well. Clusters of SGI Origins may perform well, and clusters from other systems such as the Digital Compaq cluster that's going into the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division may perform well. So there are a number of possibilities. The second challenge is teraflop computing. Only two or three teraflop systems may be funded for nondefense applications in the U.S., and there are at least a dozen sites who would like to have one of those. The greenhouse problem is very important. It's high priority within the science community, so SCD is positioned to compete well.
Do you think the future of scientific computing is highly parallel processing?For sure it's parallel processing. It remains to be seen how highly parallel it's going to be. Our colleagues overseas are doing a lot of parallel computing using a couple of hundred vector processors, while in this country, we're attempting to do parallel processing with a few thousand microprocessors. We have yet to see which of these two approaches will be the most successful. But certainly parallel computing is the future of scientific computing.
What's in your future?Well, I'm not looking for a rocking chair, but I'm not looking for a full-time job either. I've been contacted by several organizations to work with them in different capacities. It looks like right now that I'm going to have to be careful, or I'm going to have more work than I want to do! So there's an abundance of opportunity. I look forward to the change of pace and the opportunity to work with several organizations.
Will you be doing technical or managerial work?It'll be some of both. In some cases, I'll be providing advice with regard to management; and in other cases I'll be participating in technical activities -- in particular, technology assessment: measuring performance and projecting trends based on current capabilities.
What do you consider your biggest achievement in your career?
I would say there were two. One was a classic citation paper I coauthored. The other was getting the NCAR Climate Simulation Laboratory established, funded, and underway.
Certainly the loss of the SX4 was a tremendous loss for SCD and for the entire atmospheric sciences community. Another major regret was that Seymour Cray's company ended up going into Chapter 11. In hindsight, if I could relive the early 90s, I would work a lot harder to get funding into Cray Computer Corporation.
What's your philosophy of life?(laughs) Well, my parents basically emphasized three things. One was work hard; two, get all the education you can get; and three, be careful with debt. I'll add two more to that, based on my own experience. First, trust your gut, never go against it; and second, there are two sides to every story. Try to hear both.
Is there one last thing you want to say to SCD?Best wishes. It's been a lot of fun.
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