Muti-user equipments for high performance computing

• Grant number: 11/51966-7
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Technical Reserve for Institutional Research Infrastructure
• Start date: February 01, 2012
• End date: March 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics
• Principal Investigator: Edison Zacarias da Silva
• Grantee: Edison Zacarias da Silva
• Host Institution: Centro Nacional de Processamento de Alto Desempenho em São Paulo (CENAPAD-SP). Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa (PRP). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

CENAPAD has installed in 2005 a new computer system supported by FAPESP's Multi-User Equipment Program, with the investment of US$ 390,000. The machine is an SGI 1350 system, and it has been in operation ever since with excellent results. Due to the excellent performance and results achieved with this machine, and in order to keep providing competitive computing power to our users, we send this project for an upgrade of our current system. This new proposal is to acquire the latest system by SGI, an innovative company that has created the NUMA technology for memory addressing which is available in both Altix 1350 and Altix 450 with Itanium2 processors currently installed in CENAPAD. This year, SGI has released the first NUMA platform using Xeon processors, which are cheaper and more efficient than Itanium2. This technology is exclusive to SGI, and the competition will not have similar equipment for the next two years. If acquired by CENAPAD, this powerful system will put our Center at the forefront of High Performance Computing. It will allow the study of a big range of new and more complex systems, and will help supporting research in São Paulo and in Brazil. (AU)