MILPITAS, Calif., June 10 — SGI, a global leader in high-performance solutions for compute, data analytics and data management, announced that through a competitive bid Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has selected SGI to support its energy research and simulations, through SGI’s valued partner ComnetCo, Inc.

INL is part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) complex of national laboratories. The laboratory performs work in each of the strategic goal areas of DOE: energy, national security, science and environment. INL is the nation’s leading center for nuclear energy research and development. Day-to- day management and operation of the laboratory is the responsibility of Battelle Energy Alliance. The laboratory develops software that helps scientists analyze research through simulations, which is the key application running on the new SGI system.

The SGI ICE X system is exclusive to the laboratory, and is currently deployed in its high performance computing (HPC) center. In order to enhance its data-intensive nuclear reactor simulations, INL purchased a 684-node SGI ICE X cluster. The cluster incorporates the Intel Xeon Processor E5-2600 v3. The cluster will deliver 511 trillion floating point operations per second on the standard TOP500 benchmark suite. The SGI ICE X integrated cluster architecture will deliver high uptime as it incorporates very few cables, reducing complexity and overhead. In addition to promising high availability, the system is very modular, easy to maintain and install, and efficient to cool — utilizing SGI’s water cooling system, which includes water cooled rear doors on the computer racks.

As of November 2014, the SGI system at INL achieved:

• TOP500.org ranking as the 97th fastest supercomputer in the world
• Green500.org ranking as the 31st most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world

SGI has won competitive contracts in support of supercomputing and visualization at INL since the mid- 1980s. INL updates its primary HPC system every three to four years and in the latest cycle chose the SGI ICE X solution based on performance and cost. In addition, the SGI system eases the burden on INL’s data center air conditioning system as the air exiting the system is temperature neutral to the computer room.

“SGI is pleased to work with INL once again to provide the SGI ICE X system for its critically important work in energy research and simulations,” said Jorge Titinger, president and CEO, SGI. “The critical insights discovered through INL’s nuclear reactor simulations are an excellent example of the data- intensive workloads that SGI’s systems help clients solve.”

About SGI

SGI is a global leader in high performance solutions for compute, data analytics and data management that enable customers to accelerate time to discovery, innovation, and profitability. Visit sgi.com for more information.

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Source: SGI