SEATTLE, Wash., June 24 — Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. today announced the Company has been awarded a $54 million contract to provide the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) with two next-generation Cray XC supercomputers and a Cray Sonexion storage system.
Based in Seoul, Korea, KMA is one of the world’s leading operational weather forecasting and climate research centers. In support of its mission of realizing advanced meteorological services to be in-time, accurate and valuable, KMA will use the next-generation Cray XC supercomputers to provide more accurate weather forecasts through increased model resolution, new forecasting models, increased ensemble sizes, and the implementation of advanced data assimilation.
“KMA is responsible for providing services for the protection of life and property in the form of weather and climate information,” said Kyung Heoun Lee, Director of the National Center for Meteorological Supercomputing at KMA. “We live in a weather sensitive environment, and people and businesses increasing rely on us for accurate environmental forecasting. Our new Cray supercomputers will be a valuable resource for us to meet our strategic, operational and research objectives.”
“Weather forecasting and climate research play vital roles in societies across the globe, and we are honored that KMA, one of the premier centers in this important industry, has once again selected a Cray system to meet their demanding requirements for producing an extensive range of meteorological services,” said Andrew Wyatt, Cray vice president, APMEA. “We have developed a long, collaborative relationship with KMA over the years, and we are honored our partnership will continue.”
Cray will provide KMA with a highly integrated, multi-petaflops supercomputing infrastructure designed for operational resiliency. The system will include two next-generation Cray XC supercomputing systems — one of which will be used for production and the other for research and back-up — and a multi-petabyte Cray Sonexion storage system. The Cray XC system at KMA will be a next-generation version of the current Cray XC30 supercomputer.
Previously code-named “Cascade,” the Cray XC30 series of supercomputers is engineered to meet the performance challenges of today’s most demanding high performance computing (HPC) users. The Cray XC30 and Cray XC30-AC supercomputers include: the Aries system interconnect; a Dragonfly network topology that frees applications from locality constraints; innovative cooling systems to lower customers’ total cost of ownership; the next-generation of the scalable, high performance Cray Linux Environment supporting a wide range of applications; Cray’s HPC optimized programming environment, and the ability to handle a wide variety of processor types.
The Cray Sonexion storage solution at KMA will include 21.7 petabytes of capacity and 270 gigabytes per-second of applications performance. Cray’s Sonexion storage system combines Cray’s Lustre expertise with a unique design that allows scalability from five gigabytes per-second to more than a terabyte per-second in a single file system — and performs optimally at scale. Management is simplified through an appliance design with all storage components including software, storage and infrastructure.
Consisting of products and services, the multi-year multi-phase contract is valued at more than $54 million, and final system delivery is expected to be completed in 2015.
About the Korea Meteorological Administration
Established in 1949 as the Central Meteorological Office, KMA is a governmental organization dedicated to improving public welfare through the prevention and mitigation of meteorological disasters, by supporting government and business activities such as transportations and water resource management that depend on accurate weather forecasts, and by producing scientific information on climate change. KMA comprises the Forecast, Observation, Climate and Industry and IT bureaus; the NWP officer; NIMR; aviation weather stations; five Regional Meteorological Offices with more than 1,300 employees; and 97 weather and observation stations. The organization collaborates with other entities engaged in meteorological prediction and research worldwide. Go to web.kma.go.kr/eng/index.jsp for more information.
About Cray Inc.
Global supercomputing leader Cray Inc. provides innovative systems and solutions enabling scientists and engineers in industry, academia and government to meet existing and future simulation and analytics challenges. Leveraging 40 years of experience in developing and servicing the world’s most advanced supercomputers, Cray offers a comprehensive portfolio of supercomputers and Big Data storage and analytics solutions delivering unrivaled performance, efficiency and scalability. Cray’s Adaptive Supercomputing vision is focused on delivering innovative next-generation products that integrate diverse processing technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to meet the market’s continued demand for realized performance. Go to www.cray.com for more information.
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Source: Cray Inc.