The Leading Source for Global News and Information Covering the Ecosystem of High Productivity Computing
June 08, 2007
Supercomputer Delivers Complete Brain View 24 Times Faster
1 | 2 All »
SHEFFIELD, England, June 7 -- Just 10 months after the launch of the UK's largest High Performance Compute Cluster (HPCC) for neuroimaging data analysis at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), scientists now receive a more complete view of the brain faster.
Overlaying MEG brain scans onto MRI brain scans, scientists can use the power of the cluster to simultaneously process 100 complete brain images in just 16 minutes -- 24 times faster than processing the images consecutively.
Overlaying MEG onto MRI scans to create a single view in just a few minutes enables scientists to receive results, analyse findings and, if necessary, adjust research parameters to complete projects more quickly. Researchers can now get a better understanding of how the brain works and responds to specific stimuli in less time. Visiting scientists are also reducing costly repeat visits to the facility as the availability of a HPCC to process brain scan images simultaneously increases on-site productivity.
"The work of scientists using the CUBRIC facility involves complex mathematical analysis on data sets and in the past that would take significant time," said Spiro Stathakis, IT Systems Manager. "The High Performance Compute Cluster has successfully increased performance of processing brain scan images to near real-time. This enables Scientists to gain a better understanding of how the brain works and the effects brain injuries have on people in less time. We are getting a deeper look into a complex organ and how it reacts to adverse conditions."
The solution's entire design, install and maintenance is provided by OCF, the UK's premier high performance computing integrator.
"Scientists using the CUBRIC facility place great demands on the computing environment," said Julian Fielden, managing director, OCF plc. "Cutting brain scan image overlay time from hours to minutes is proof that the CUBRIC HPCC is a world class system that meets the storage, data backup and processing demands of scientists."
The High Performance Computer -- based on a cluster model -- consists of 75 node cluster of IBM e326m dual processor, dual-core AMD Opteron servers, providing 300 processors.
The solution also includes 40 IBM IntelliStation A Pro graphical workstations to view and manipulate the brain scan images. These workstations can be either completely stand-alone processing engines, or can be recruited into the compute cluster to give a total of 460 processing cores. A conservative estimate puts the performance of the CUBRIC cluster at 530 GFLOPS.
Together with the cluster and the workstations, CUBRIC also houses high-performance network and storage solutions for the large amount of data generated by the scanners and subsequent analysis. These include:
- Infortrend 40 TB storage configured in RAID5 and using a GPFS file system.
- Nortel Network GB Ethernet with stacking switches.
- A tape-library for data archiving.
Article Tools
Share Options
(Digg, Technorati, more)
Subscribe
Sponsored Links
RSS Feeds
Feeds by Topic
- Applications
- Developer Tools
- Interconnects
- Middleware
- Networks
- Processors
- Storage
- Systems
- Visualization
Feeds by Industry
Feeds by Content Type
Feature Articles
TeraGrid '09: Student Participation Soars
There was a new energy at this year's TeraGrid '09 conference thanks to an outstanding turnout for the student program. Thanks to support from the National Science Foundation, more than 100 high school, undergraduate and graduate students were able to participate in the conference.
Read More...
TeraGrid '09: OSG and TeraGrid Collaboration
Paul Avery, a recognized leader in advanced grid and networking for science, delivered the first keynote address at the recent TeraGrid '09 conference in Arlington, Virginia. A professor of physics at the University of Florida, Avery is co-principal investigator and founding member of the Open Science Grid (OSG). Avery talked about the history of OSG, some of the projects that leverage its resources, and OSG's relationship with TeraGrid.
Read More...
TeraGrid '09: Thriving in an Exponentially Changing World
Before he even took the podium, Ed Seidel was one of the buzz makers at the TeraGrid '09 conference. The day before his keynote, it was announced that he was stepping in as acting assistant director of the National Science Foundation's math and physical sciences directorate. For his talk at the conference, however, Seidel focused on the issues and efforts within his home at NSF, the Office of Cyberinfrastructure.
Read More...
Top Headlines
3D Seismic Data: Taking a Smarter Approach to Interpretation
Jul 09 | Engineer Live | The demand for computational tools to underpin the 3D seismic interpretation process has never been more apparent. Read more...
Engineering Unemployment Soared in 2Q to 8.6%
Jul 08 | EE Times | Unemployment for U.S. engineers has reached record levels, according to government figures. Read more...
Gartner Adjusts 2009 IT Spend Downward Again
Jul 08 | Network World | Global spending for 2009 projected to drop 6 percent, for a total of $3.2 trillion. Read more...
Concurrent and Parallel Are Not The Same
Jul 08 | Linux Magazine | Portability or efficiency? Neither is guaranteed when writing explicit parallel code. Read more...
800 TFLOP Real-Time Ray Tracing GPU Unveiled, Not for Gamers
Jul 07 | Ars Technica | Japanese company builds custom ASIC to accelerate real-time ray traced rendering for the auto industry. Read more...
Featured Whitepapers
Building High Performance Computing in a Green and Modular Solution Building Block
Apr 14 | | Many HPC IT departments are feeling the rising pressure to deliver more capacity computing and performance while trying to reduce the total cost of ownership. This white paper discusses how an environmentally-friendly and open-standards HPC building block based computing system using flexible interconnect options helps address capacity computing needs.
Multimedia
Webcast: Dell Expands HPC Access and Adoption with Intel Cluster Ready Program
Source: Addison Snell, GM/VP, Tabor Research; sponsored by Dell
Many organizations that could benefit from the use of HPC clusters find that it is complicated to get the systems up and running because of limited IT resources or the complexities of the clusters themselves. Learn how the Intel Cluster Ready program, for which Dell was an original partner, seeks to address this challenge for entry level and mid-range HPC users.
Video White Paper: Architecting a Better Network Storage Solution
BlueArc's Titan architecture represents an evolutionary step in file servers by creating a hardware-based file system that can scale bandwidth, IOPS, and overall data capacity well beyond conventional software-based devices. With its ability to virtualize a massive storage pool of up to four usable petabytes of tiered storage, Titan can scale with growing data requirements, offering a competitive advantage for businesses, researchers, or other enterprises seeking to better manage data growth while still ensuring optimal performance.
Webcast: HPC Development Solutions: Sun Studio & Sun HPC ClusterTools
Sun Studio Compilers and Tools and Sun HPC ClusterTools allow you to create high performance parallel applications for OpenSolaris, Solaris and Linux. Sun Studio Express 11/08 includes MPI performance analysis capabilities and full OpenMP 3.0 compiler support. Learn about all this and the latest in Sun HPC ClusterTools 8.1.
Newsletters
Stay informed! Subscribe to HPCwire email Newsletters.
HPC Job Bank
-
HPC Systems Administrator
McGill University -
High Performance Computing Data Center Manager
National Renewable Energy Laboratory -
High Performance Computing Systems Administrator
Idaho National Laboratory -
Solution Engineer- HPC
Dell Inc -
Parallel Programmer
Cardiff University -
Principal Software Research Engineer
Indiana University -
Post Doctoral Researcher - Exascale Stream Computing
IBM - Visit the HPCwire Job Bank
Featured Events
-
July 13-16, 2009
WORLDCOMP'09
Las Vegas , NV
USA
-
August 24-28, 2009
Data Mining: Levels I, II, & III
Denver , CO
USA