HackingTheUniverse

The National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) is part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee that is run by the Department of Energy (DOE). The function of the NCCS is to provide state of the art high-performance computing resources for scientific research. The center hosts the “Jaguar” supercomputer which is based on Cray XT4 architecture and was ranked 2nd on the 2007 list of the worlds fastest supercomputers. Since then it has been upgraded with Cray XT5 components that have pushed top performance levels to 1.6 PETAFLOPS (1,645 teraflops)!

Jaguar – [nccs.gov]

Each node runs Cray’s version of the SuSE Linux operating system. Cray has tuned the Linux kernel to remove unnecessary services from the compute nodes. The result is that the operating system minimizes interruptions to the application codes running on the system, thus giving predictable, repeatable run times for applications. The SuSE Linux operating system on the nodes joins the system services, networking software, communications, I/O, and mathematical libraries, as well as compilers, debuggers, and performance tools to form the Cray Linux Environment. Jaguar supports MPI, OpenMP, SHMEM, and PGAS programming models. The NCCS supports compilers from PGI, Pathscale, and GNU on Jaguar.

With the high power-density of about 2,000 watts per square foot, Jaguar could not be built without using some form of liquid cooling to prevent hot spots. At 4,400 square feet, the XT5 segment is as large as a NBA basketball court. It would be very difficult to provide evenly controlled temperature and air pressure to each of the 200 cabinets using traditional under-floor, forced-air cooling. Jaguar solves this problem by using Cray’s new ECOphlex cooling technology. This technology uses R-134a refrigerant, the same as in automobile air-conditioners, to remove the heat as the air enters and exits each cabinet. The result is that the NCCS is saving 900 kilowatts of electricity and over $500,000 per year that would be required just to power the fans in a traditional forced-air cooling system. Further savings are realized due to the 480-volt power supplies in each cabinet. By keeping the voltage high, the electrical losses in the power cords are minimized, saving $500,000 over the system life-cycle.

Jaguar may soon be world’s fastest computer – [knoxnews.com]

Thanks to a rapid upgrade with stimulus money, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s “Jaguar” will likely become the world’s fastest computer within a few months. The Cray XT5 supercomputer already is the world’s fastest machine for open scientific uses.

Jeff Nichols, ORNL’s interim associate lab director for scientific computing, said the new six-core “Istanbul” processors from AMD are expected to arrive later this summer and will rev up Jaguar’s peak processing capability to “well over 2 petaflops.” That’s more than 2,000 trillion mathematical calculations per second.