HPCwire: Xiamen University Speeds Research with SGI Altix Cluster

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March 17, 2006

Xiamen University Speeds Research with SGI Altix Cluster

Silicon Graphics has announced that scientists in the State Key Laboratory of Physics Chemistry of Solid Surfaces at Xiamen University have streamlined their advanced chemistry study with four, 16-processor SGI Altix 350 servers equipped with 32 GB of memory each. The four Altix servers comprise a cluster that is utilized by different research projects, such as studying the physical chemistry of solid surfaces and the discovery of new materials. The computational power of the Altix systems has significantly accelerated research progress by delivering results in much less time.

The State Key Laboratory of Physics Chemistry of Solid Surfaces at Xiamen University is a leading physics chemistry lab in China. The University is focused on the latest developments in theoretical methods and computational modeling of complex molecular systems and related chemical and biological processes.

The Lab at Xiamen University selected the SGI Altix cluster over a PC-based cluster solution because of its flexibility in processing numerical codes from different projects, scalability, easy administration, low latency and peak power performance. The ease-of-use and administration of the new Altix system enables scientists and researchers to focus on real science instead of computer science.

"Each project group has its own objective and schedule. Everyday we receive computing requirements from different groups and the Altix cluster is fully utilized to run material studio, CASTEP and DMol3 from Accelerys, VASP and various custom codes," said Professor Cao, group leader for the University's HPC platform. "Since we installed the Altix systems, we have processed three times more workload than before in the same time. This is a significant acceleration in time to insight and discovery for many of the research projects of each group."

The four SGI Altix 350 systems, installed in October, together are powered by 64 Intel Itanium 2 processors running the 64-bit Linux operating environment. Based on SGI's NUMAflex architecture, SGI Altix provides a cluster solution that can support the demanding application mix in a multi-user environment, with scalability in all dimensions. This modular architecture can independently scale processors, memory, and I/O resources.

"Coupled with the Itanium 2 processor, the SGI Altix server offers technical computing users unprecedented price/performance and scalability in a standard Linux environment," said William Wu, Regional Platform Marketing Manager, Asia Pacific, Intel. "The real value is how this system will help accelerate scientific design and research faster than before."

"We are pleased that the The State Key Laboratory of Physics Chemistry of Solid Surfaces at Xiamen University has experienced such significant progress in their research by using the SGI Altix 350, " said Alex Lee, president, SGI, China. "SGI core competencies of HPC, storage and visualization are keenly aligned with the needs of scientists and educators throughout the world, fueling innovation and discovery in many disciplines. SGI values our relationship with Xiamen University as a strategic customer in China and in the sciences field."

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