T-Platforms together with CSC-IT Center for Science build the supercomputer for Europe

T-Platforms company together with the Finnish supercomputer center CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd., the Swiss National Supercomputer center CSCS and the National center of high-performance computing and information technologies of SARA begin the joint project on construction of a prototype of a supercomputer system of new generation. In the future a system will be a part of the pan-European supercomputer infrastructure of PRACE RI.

Objectives

The prototype is going to be applied to assessment of energy efficiency and controllability of supercomputers of new generation and also testing of new coding environments. During the joint project the high-scalable parallel application software which is effectively using accelerators with different architecture as a part of hybrid computing systems will be developed. The prototype of a system will include the latest developments in the field of construct, infrastructure of cooling, interconnect and processor accelerators and also operating systems and management systems. System performance will be rather high for studying of scalability of parallel scientific and applied software packages on supercomputers of new generation.

System

The prototype of a system will be based on the architecture of new generation with the working name T-REX developed by T-Platforms company. Creation of the full-function solution with a design peak capacity up to 400 of Tflops is going to be completed in 2013. It will include 256 hybrid computing nodes based on Intel processors with the NVIDIA Tesla and Intel Xeon Phi accelerators earlier known as Intel of MIC cooled by hot water. Interprocessor exchange will be provided by system network InfiniBand with the advanced software implementing a number of advanced technologies of improvement of scalability, such as adaptive routing. In the third quarter 2012 it is going to complete creation of the first stage of a prototype consisting of smaller quantity of hybrid nodes based on architecture of V-Class of T-Platforms company.

On a prototype the management system of ClustrX of T-Platforms company providing ample opportunities of deployment, monitoring and management of a supercomputer complex will be installed. Possibilities of architecture of T-Rex and the Clustrx system and also a number of the software technologies developed by the Russian-European consortium HOPSA will allow to set interrelation between the actual performance of applications and energy consumption of the supercomputer and also to implement new highly effective methods of management of energy consumption. During the joint project the universal platform for assessment of energy efficiency of supercomputer installations at all levels, from applications to engineering infrastructure of data center will be created that in the long term will allow to develop more energy efficient supercomputer DPCs.

Opinion

"The prototype combines a number of the technology innovations providing essential increase in productivity, scalability and energy efficiency. This architecture can become a basis of high-performance computing clusters of the future, and this prototype will prepare us for use of complete potential of such systems", ― Olli-Pekka Lehto, the technical project coordinator from the Finnish supercomputer center CSC noted.