Communications of the ACM
Birmingham Amps Up Research With New Linux Supercomputer
The University of Birmingham's BlueBEAR II Linux supercomputer eventually will incorporate a Windows cluster, a GPU cluster render farm, and other services.
Credit: Linux.org
University of Birmingham researchers are ready to launch the second generation of BlueBEAR, a Linux supercomputer that eventually will include a Windows cluster, a GPU cluster render farm, and other services.
The University of Birmingham also plans to provide additional compute power to GridPP, a collaboration of particle physicists and computer scientists from both Britain and Europe's CERN facility.
BlueBEAR II will enable researchers to process larger, and more detailed and accurate simulations and test cases, and in less time than with previous systems. BlueBEAR II includes a large memory service for data-intensive needs, a visualization center, and highly scalable collaborative conferencing and visualization features. BlueBEAR II employs a 15-teraflop processor with 850 processing cores based on Intel's Sandy-Bridge eight-core processor. The Linux-based array is one component of the Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) under jointly development by the university and its partners.
The next challenge is to widen the user base to those research areas that do not traditionally use a Linux high-performance computing service, according to University of Birmingham researcher Paul Hatton.
From InformationWeek
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2013 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found