This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
HPC news


Cosmologists explore universe with new supercomputer


Astronomy speeds up at São Paulo


A supercomputer capable of doing a billion calculations each second has been installed at the University of Portsmouth, enabling cosmologists to test our understanding of the origin of galaxies and of gravity itself. The supercomputer, named ‘SCIAMA’, has a 1008 Intel core cluster, which represents the equivalent strength of approximately 1,000 desktop systems, 2 Gbytes of memory per core, 85 Tbytes of fast parallel storage and uses 2.66GHz Intel Xeon processors. It is designed to receive, process and present large amounts of astronomical data very quickly. Researchers at the university’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation


(ICG) will use the supercomputer to simulate vast regions of the universe, investigate the properties of hundreds of millions of galaxies and solve complex cosmological problems. Gary Burton, ICG’s senior specialist technician, will be responsible for managing the supercomputer. He said: ‘The huge power of a supercomputer like SCIAMA is necessary to deal with the vast amount of observational data coming from satellites, telescopes and other detectors. Using it will allow us to explore the whole of cosmic history and analyse data that contains fundamental clues about the origins of the universe.’


SCIAMA has been designed and supplied by Dell, in association with Alces Software. It will be housed in a university computer room, where


researchers can access it remotely from their laptops or PCs. The installation of the computer has been jointly funded by the South East Physics Network (SEPNet), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the University of Portsmouth. In addition to being used by cosmologists at the university, users at all SEPNet astronomy departments will also have access.


Swiss centre gains next-gen supercomputer


The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Manno, Switzerland, has awarded a contract to Cray to acquire a next-generation Cray XMT supercomputer. The announcement, made in conjunction with a CSCS- hosted workshop focused on large-scale data analysis, marks Cray’s fi rst order for its next-generation Cray XMT system.


CSCS, which is currently home to a Cray XT5 supercomputer nicknamed ‘Rosa’ and was also the recipient of the fi rst-ever Cray XE6 system, will use its next-generation Cray XMT supercomputer for solving problems that require large-scale data analysis. The massively multithreaded system will be part of a new project at CSCS


called ‘Eureka’. The proposed facility will be used for large-scale analysis of unstructured data and data mining, and is designed for parallel applications that are dynamically changing, require random access to shared memory and typically do not run well on conventional systems. CSCS is expected to receive its system later in 2011.


OAK RIDGE IMPROVES LORRY PERFORMANCE


BMI, an engineering fi rm specialising in aerodynamic testing, cad design, manufacturing and laser scanning, has successfully developed a technology in partnership with the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to make articulated lorries more fuel-effi cient,


22 SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD


potentially saving millions of gallons of fuel. The company’s work with Oak Ridge was made possible through ORNL’s Industrial High-Performance Computing Partnerships Program, supported by the department’s Offi ce of Science. Through this, BMI accessed ORNL’s Cray XT-5


‘Jaguar’ supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak computational capability of 2.3 Pfl ops. The use of Jaguar shortened computing time for BMI’s complex models from days to a few hours and eliminated the need for costly and time-consuming physical prototypes.


The Astronomy Department of the University of São Paulo has selected SGI Altix ICE 8400 for its high-performance computing (HPC) system to carry out advanced scientifi c astronomical research in Brazil. As theoreticians at the university are creating new and more advanced physical models to study the universe, they require immense processing power from larger, faster and more massively parallel computer clusters. The Astronomy Department selected Altix ICE 8400 with AMD processors to meet its intensive computing needs, enabling them to solve problems that were previously not possible. The university’s Altix ICE 8400 consists of 2,304 cores of AMD Opteron 6172 processors and contains over 4.6 Tbytes of main memory. With AMD Opteron 6100 Series processor support, it is now capable of delivering up to 1,536 processor cores in a single rack, and can scale from 32 to 65,536 compute nodes. Additionally, the Altix ICE 8400 now provides up to 14.13 Tfl ops of compute capability and up to 8.192 Tbytes of memory per rack.


IN BRIEF


ISC’11 has announced its four keynote presentations Bright Cluster Manager is now available through Dell as an option for HPC Clusters (HPCC)


EM Photonics has partnered with SMB, a German HPC reseller


The technical programme for SC11 is now accepting online submissions


The Vienna University of Technology, University of Vienna and University for Soil Management have ordered a new scientifi c supercomputer


www.scientific-computing.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48