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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / APRIL 21, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 16
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Scientific Applications:
CACR SELECTS HP SYSTEMS FOR TERAGRID PROJECT
HP announced that the California Institute of Technology's Center for Advanced
Computing Research (CACR) has installed HP Itanium 2-based servers running
on Linux as part of its 32-node cluster dedicated to data intensive
applications on the TeraGrid project, the world's largest, fastest,
distributed infrastructure for open scientific research.
As the focal point for research in computational science and engineering at
the California Institute of Technology, CACR turned to HP's dual-processor
clustered rx2600 Itanium 2-based servers to provide an infrastructure that
can easily adapt to its fast-evolving computing needs.
"We rely on continuous performance improvements to advance the sophistication
of our simulations and maintain a rapid research pace," said James C.T. Pool,
executive director, CACR. "HP has been providing CACR with reliable, high-performance systems for years. We have performed initial testing with NAS
Parallel Benchmarks, High Performance Linpack, Pallas MPI Benchmarks, and
local applications stressing computational and data intensive aspects of the
HP cluster. We are pleased with the results to date."
CACR will employ 17 Itanium 2-based servers to provide the performance and
stability required to run data-intensive applications, perform scientific
simulations and move large volumes of data across the network in real time for
the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid project.
The TeraGrid is an $88 million project funded by the NSF and will allow
researchers across the United States to more quickly analyze, simulate and
help solve some of the most complex scientific problems such as molecular
modeling for disease detection, drug discovery, automobile crash simulations
and research on alternative energy sources.
Enabled by the Intel Itanium 2 processor and the high-bandwidth, low-latency HP Chipset zx1, the HP servers will connect to a collection of high-performance computers at five labs(1), creating a giant virtual computer
accessible from any point on the TeraGrid. The system is expected to be
operational by July.
"We are extremely pleased to expand our relationship with CACR. Not only does
it speak to the strength of HP's Itanium-based solutions, but it also
underlines our commitment to the technical computing space," said Winston
Prather, vice president, high performance technical computing, HP Enterprise
Systems Group. "Today's announcement is further testimony of the increasing
number of organizations that are choosing Itanium-based servers for their
high-performance computing needs."
CACR also is using eight single-processor HP zx2000 Itanium 2-based
workstations for the development of earth sciences applications and parallel
visualization software.
HP has been supplying high-performance systems to CACR for several years,
including an HP Superdome server running HP-UX being used for scientific
research.
TeraGrid is a multi-year effort to build and deploy the world's largest,
fastest, distributed infrastructure for open scientific research. When
completed, the TeraGrid will include 20 teraflops of computing power
distributed at five sites, facilities capable of managing and storing nearly 1
petabyte of data, high-resolution visualization environments and toolkits for
grid computing. These components will be tightly integrated and connected
through a network that will operate at 40 gigabits per second -- the fastest
research network on the planet. More information about the TeraGrid is
available at www.teragrid.org.
About CACR
For almost two decades, the Center for Advanced Computing Research and its
predecessors at the California Institute of Technology have provided leading-
edge capabilities for computational science and engineering research
collaborations and experimented with new technologies to help define the
technical computing environment of the future. More information about CACR is
available at www.cacr.caltech.edu.
About HP
HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and
services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT
infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and
imaging and printing. HP completed its acquisition of Compaq Computer
Corporation on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at
www.hp.com.
(1) The four labs include the San Diego Supercomputing Center, the Argonne
National Laboratory, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the California Institute of Technology.
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