Scientific
Applications:
AUSTRALIAN SCIENTISTS USE SGI
SYSTEMS BASED ON LINUX GRID CLUSTERS
SGI announced that the Queensland Parallel Supercomputer Foundation (QPSF),
a
technology consortium of six universities in Australia's Queensland State,
will shortly take delivery of two of the company's just-launched SGI Altix
3000 supercomputing systems based on the Linux operating system.
QPSF members will use a 64-processor server primarily for batch processing
and a 16-processor system for open-source applications development. Among
the research groups expressing strong interest in the new SGI(R) platform
are teams in bioinformatics, systems modeling, computational physics,
computational chemistry and engineering. Much of their work centers on
management of Queensland's abundant natural resources.
"The approach that SGI has taken with its new Linux systems is very
exciting," said QPSF acting CEO Ian Atkinson. "The benchmark results for
the SGI Altix 3000 system architecture were amazing, but it's not just its
processing performance that's exciting. Linux is a good idea. We have
research groups lined up waiting to use the Altix systems.
"These systems give us a complete range of benefits, including fast
processor
performance and the SGI NUMAlink flat memory space, which gives individual
users a great deal of memory when they need it," he added.
"The economics of this architecture for grid computing are extremely
important
to us as well. Single employees can manage big 60- and 80-processor systems,
which is impossible when you tie many small Linux machines together.
We have continued to expand our MIPS processor-based supercomputing
capacity,
for which there is a strong demand, but we know the SGI open-source Altix
concept will be highly successful here." QPSF member institutions include the
University of Queensland, James Cook University, Griffith University,
Queensland University of Technology, Central Queensland University and
University of Southern Queensland.
The SGI Altix 3000 systems, to be installed at the University of Queensland
in
Brisbane, will be accessed by scientists at all member institutions for
research applications that range from bioinformatics to marine ecology.
Scientists at the six Queensland universities will access the SGI Altix
clusters, both of which are powered by Intel Itanium 2 processors, across the
state's high-bandwidth research network, which will soon be upgraded to 2.5Gb
under the national Grangenet initiative.
Q uality of service and support was a significant factor in QPSF's tender
process. "Support is clearly very important to us," said Atkinson. "There's a
great deal of work going on here that we view as mission-critical. We're as
impressed as ever with SGI's services and support programs, which remain at an
impeccably high level."
http://www.sgi.com/go/research
About SGI
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics Inc, is a world leader in high-
performance computing, visualization and the management of complex data.
SGI products, services and solutions enable its technical and creative
customers to gain strategic and competitive advantages in their core
businesses.
Whether being used to design and build safer cars and airplanes, discover
new
medications and oil reserves, predict the weather, entertain us with thrilling
movie special effects or provide mission-critical support for government and
defense, SGI systems and expertise are empowering a world of innovation and
discovery.
The company is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, and has offices
worldwide.
http://www.sgi.com
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