These are good general references on supercomputers, SDSC, NPACI, and more.  For specific resources related to the class project, please look at the resources page.

 
APR 3 Reagan Moore
Performance evaluation heuristics & algebra

Read the handout from class: File Servers, Networking, and Supercomputers by Reagan W. Moore 

For more background see the NPACI Data-Intensive Computing page.
APR 10 Sid Karin

Please read Misleading Performance Specifications in the Supercomputer Field
         David H. Bailey,  RNR Technical Report RNR-92-005, December 1, 1992.
 

Also look through the SDSC / NPACI web pages to gain an overview. 
General "The Grid : blueprint for a new computing infrastructure"
Ian Foster & Carl Kesselman
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1999
(Overview of Contents Available)

"The Supermen"
Charles J. Murray
Wiley, 1997

"A Few Good Men From Univac"
David E. Lundstrom
MIT Press, 1987

"Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science"
William J. Kaufmann III & Larry Smarr
Scientific American Library, 1993

"The Supercomputer Era"
Sidney Karin & Norris Parker Smith
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987

CACM issue devoted to NPACI
Volume 41, No. 11, November 1998

CACM issue devoted to NCSA
Volume 40, No. 11, November 1997

HPCC Glossary