The supercomputer, called
the Earth System Modelling Facility, consists of seven clustered
IBM eServer p655 servers which are each equipped with
eight Power4+ CPUs, plus an IBM eServer p690, which includes
32 Power4+ CPUs.
It runs AIX Unix and will cost just over $1m, according
to David Turek, vice-president of deep computing at IBM.
The 528GFlops system is capable of calculating one
billion floating-point operations per second (Flops).
Also included in the setup is 32TBytes of RAID5 storage
using two IBM xSeries 335 servers running Red Hat Linux
and Sistina Software's Global File System.
The machine will be used by researchers in the university's
Davis Department of Earth System Science to predict the
impact of global warming, pollution and other stresses
on the earth.
Among the questions to be analysed is how global warming,
man-made |
pollutants, polar-ice movements
and chemical cycles will affect the Earth and its inhabitants.
In its present configuration, the machine offers a large
processing punch at a relatively low price for a supercomputer,
enabling smaller groups access to more powerful machines.
Results of the research will be provided to the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and other national climate modelling
efforts. The Earth System Modelling Facility is being paid
for with money from the NSF and the university.
Charles Zender, assistant professor of Earth system science
at the university's Davis department, said the supercomputer
will allow researchers to pursue data-intensive research
using large geophysical data sets. |
