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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / AUGUST 11, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 32
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Systems/Enterprise:
IBM TO CREATE POWERFUL LINUX SUPERCOMPUTER
A national research laboratory in Japan has placed an order with IBM for a
supercomputer cluster that, when completed, is expected to be the most
powerful Linux-based computer in the world.
The order, from Japan's National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology (AIST), was announced by the company as it simultaneously launched
the eServer 325 system on which the cluster will be largely based.
The eServer 325 is a 1U rack mount system that includes two Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. Opteron processors of either model 240, 242 or 246, said IBM in a
statement.
This supercomputer will be built around 1,058 of these eServer 325 systems, to
make a total of 2,116 Opteron 246 processors, and an additional number of
Intel Corp. servers that include a total of 520 of the company's third-
generation Itanium 2 processor, also known by its code name Madison.
The Opteron systems will deliver a theoretical peak performance of 8.5
trillion calculations per second while the Itanium 2 systems will add 2.7
trillion calculations per second to that for a total theoretical peak
performance for the entire cluster of 11.2 trillion calculations per second.
That would rank it just above the current most powerful Linux supercomputer, a
cluster based on Intel's Xeon processor and run by Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL) in the U.S. That machine has a theoretical peak performance
of 11.1 trillion calculations per second, according to the latest version of
the Top 500 supercomputer ranking.
Based on that ranking, the new machine would mean Japan is home to two out of
the three most powerful computers in the world. The current most powerful
machine, the NEC Corp.-built Earth Simulator of the Japan Marine Science and
Technology Center, has a theoretical peak performance of 41.0 trillion
calculations per second while that of the second-fastest machine, Los Alamos
National Laboratory's ASCI Q, is 20.5 trillion calculations per second.
The eServer 325 can run either the Linux or Windows operating systems and the
supercomputer ordered by AIST will run SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8. IBM
said it expects to deliver the cluster to AIST in March, 2004. AIST will link
the machine with others as part of a supercomputer grid that will be used in
research of grid technology, life sciences bioinformatics and nanotechnology,
IBM said.
General availability of the eServer 325 is expected in October this year and
IBM said prices for the computer start at US$2,919. The computers can also be
accessed through IBM's on-demand service where users pay for processing power
based on capacity and duration.
IBM's announcement is the second piece of good news for AMD and its Opteron
processor within the last two weeks. The processor, which can handle both 32-
bit and 64-bit applications, was launched in April this year.
China's Dawning Information Industry Co. Ltd. announced plans last week to
build a supercomputer based on AMD's Opteron processor. The Dawning 4000A will
include more than 2,000 Opteron processors, with a total of 2T bytes of RAM
and 30T bytes of hard-disk space and is expected to deliver performance of
around 10 trillion calculations per second. The Beijing-based company has an
order for the machine but has not disclosed the name of the buyer or when the
computer will be put into service.
Opteron processors were also chosen for a supercomputer which is likely to
displace the AIST machine as the most powerful Linux supercomputer. Cray Inc.
is currently constructing a Linux-based supercomputer called Red Storm that is
expected to deliver a peak performance of 40 trillion calculations per second
when it is delivered in late 2004. Linux developer SuSE is also working with
Cray on that machine.
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