NCSA, Intel Boost Shared-Memory Supercomputing: Case Study
NCSA doubles performance and nearly triples memory capacity with SGI Altix* UV system based on the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 family.
As one of the premier high-performance computing (HPC) research institutions in the U.S., the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) provides HPC resources for a wide range of scientific applications, including many whose performance needs require highly parallel shared-memory architectures. NCSA recently replaced its previous shared-memory system, an SGI Altix* supercomputer based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor, with an SGI Altix UV supercomputer powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 family. NCSA says the new system, which it calls Ember, consumes half the power while delivering double the performance and nearly triple the memory capacity.
CHALLENGES
• Rising demand, aging system. At nearly six years old, NCSA’s Intel Itanium 2 processor-based shared-memory supercomputer couldn’t keep up with rising demand.
SOLUTIONS
• Technologies to maximize data-intensive performance. NCSA chose an SGI Altix UV system with 256 six-core Intel Xeon processors 7500 family. The system has 8 TB of RAM and runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux*.
IMPACT
• More speed and capacity. The new supercomputer provides 16 teraflops (TF) of peak performance and 13.5 GB per second of I/O bandwidth, helping scientists accelerate progress on a variety of complex and important problems.
• Cost and energy savings. The system consumes half as much power as the previous platform while delivering double the performance—the equivalent of four times more performance per watt.
• Increased density. The system has just four racks of compute nodes, making it four times denser than its predecessor and freeing valuable space in the data center.
Read the full NCSA, Intel Boost Shared-Memory Supercomputing case study.
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NCSA, Intel Boost Shared-Memory Supercomputing: Case Study
NCSA doubles performance and nearly triples memory capacity with SGI Altix* UV system based on the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 family.
As one of the premier high-performance computing (HPC) research institutions in the U.S., the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) provides HPC resources for a wide range of scientific applications, including many whose performance needs require highly parallel shared-memory architectures. NCSA recently replaced its previous shared-memory system, an SGI Altix* supercomputer based on the Intel® Itanium® 2 processor, with an SGI Altix UV supercomputer powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 family. NCSA says the new system, which it calls Ember, consumes half the power while delivering double the performance and nearly triple the memory capacity.
CHALLENGES
• Rising demand, aging system. At nearly six years old, NCSA’s Intel Itanium 2 processor-based shared-memory supercomputer couldn’t keep up with rising demand.
SOLUTIONS
• Technologies to maximize data-intensive performance. NCSA chose an SGI Altix UV system with 256 six-core Intel Xeon processors 7500 family. The system has 8 TB of RAM and runs Red Hat Enterprise Linux*.
IMPACT
• More speed and capacity. The new supercomputer provides 16 teraflops (TF) of peak performance and 13.5 GB per second of I/O bandwidth, helping scientists accelerate progress on a variety of complex and important problems.
• Cost and energy savings. The system consumes half as much power as the previous platform while delivering double the performance—the equivalent of four times more performance per watt.
• Increased density. The system has just four racks of compute nodes, making it four times denser than its predecessor and freeing valuable space in the data center.
Read the full NCSA, Intel Boost Shared-Memory Supercomputing case study.
