Brown's new supercomputer
Date: Dec 09, 2009
In Providence, R.I., Brown University's Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) is the new home of a multimillion-dollar IBM Supercomputer that researchers will use to tackle challenges ranging from weather data analysis to predict climate change to human genome mapping.
The new supercomputer runs a total of 1,440 microprocessors and can perform more than 14 trillion calculations per second. It is based on three IBM iDataPlex systems, about the size of six refrigerators; an IBM Cluster 1350; and multiple IBM storage systems running General Parallel File System, supported by IBM Global Services.
Brown also runs a about 200 gigaflops of AMD-based Sun Microsystems rack servers, about 100 gigaflops worth of Dell servers and a 40 terabyte Lustre computer cluster. The college is also installing a small GPU cluster , said Sam Fulcomer, assistant director of Brown's CCV.
To cool the dense computing system efficiently, Brown recently installed a water-chiller system and uses APC in row cooling atop legacy raised floors.
In this video, Sam Fulcomer, the assistant director of CCV, demonstrates Brown's new system.