HPCwire: Bull, University Of Düsseldorf to Design HPC Systems Of The Future

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June 29, 2007

Bull, University Of Düsseldorf to Design HPC Systems Of The Future

COLOGNE/DÜSSELDORF, Germany, June 26 -- The Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf and Bull Germany have announced a two-year co-operation agreement to coincide with the commissioning of Bull's supercomputer at the University's Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (ZIM).

The Bull Group has been contributing for several years now to high-performance computing projects internationally, particularly in Germany, in the public sector for research and education, and in the private sector. Bull has recently delivered two of the most powerful European supercomputers to the French Atomic Energy Authority, the CEA (Tera-10), and to the CCRT, the French Center for Research and Technology Computing.

Under the leadership of Professor Stephan Olbrich, the Institute of Research at the Heinrich Heine University, the ZIM Institute and the Chair of IT Management are predominantly involved in the following key areas, also the main areas for future co-operation:

Visualization technologies

These technologies are concerned with developing algorithms, models and application concepts for analyzing series of complex data, for scientific and e-learning applications. This area includes simulations and visualization scenarios with highly interactive 3D virtual reality technologies.

Scientific computing

The objective is to develop and test collaborative solutions including simulations and visualization. The research work particularly covers optimization (parallelization, ultra high-speed networks), resource management and information system security.

For the two years the collaborative agreement is due to last, three key projects are being evaluated in the areas of intensive visualization technologies and HPC clusters:

Project 1: Design of administration tools for Bull's clusters and hybrid clusters

The aim of this project is to develop methods and tools for administering and optimizing HPC cluster solutions used by the university. The cluster architecture is hybrid (heterogeneous), and is built around a network of front-line, administration and computation servers, combining Intel® Itanium® 2 ('Montecito') and Intel® Xeon® ('Woodcrest') processors. The first such hybrid cluster to be installed in a German higher educational establishment, it features homogeneous management of different platforms integrating the two types of Intel® processor.

Project 2: Bull competence and demonstration center

This project aims to establish a competence and demonstration center to present shared developments and results, as well as for benchmark testing and customer demonstrations. The center will also be used to port applications to Intel Itanium 2 and Intel Xeon environments.

Project 3: Ultra powerful visualization solutions for scientific computing

This project aims to offer services in the area of graphics and visualization solutions. It will set out to analyze technological advances, particularly in intensive visualization (Scalable Graphics), and visualization of data and specific customer queries in graphical format, and making virtual reality and mobile components for 3D visualization available to research laboratories.

"We have a particularly effective co-operative relationship with Bull's experts, enabling us to undertake projects that are scientifically enriching -- both in terms of skills and products -- for both our organizations, in the areas of cluster administration and intensive visualization," said Professor Stephan Olbrich.

"Development work in the domains of software components and HPC cluster environment technologies have been part of our core commitment for several years now, underlining the vital role that research plays at Bull," emphasized Michael Gerhards, Managing Director, Bull Germany.

For more information, please visit: www.bull.de and www.zim.uni-duesseldorf.de/server.

About the Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf

Starting out its life as an academy of medicine, this higher educational establishment in Düsseldorf became a university dedicated to research in 1965. Today it encompasses faculties of law, medicine, philosophy, life sciences and economics. With activities in seven of the country's main fields of research, the University of Düsseldorf is one of the leading establishments in Germany. The University's strategic areas of research cover, in particular, molecular biology, cardiology, hepatology, biology, biotechnologies and, last but not least, plasma physics.

Close on 15,500 students will be attending the University of Heinrich Heine in 2007.

About Bull, Architect of an Open World

As one of the leading European IT companies, Bull delivers open, flexible and secure information systems. The group helps public and private sector customers transform their information systems, applying its know-how and expertise in three main areas:

Capitalizing on its extensive mainframe experience, Bull designs and produces robust, innovative and open servers, based on industry-standard technologies;
Building on its alliances with leading ISVs, Bull develops and implements flexible and interoperable application infrastructures which give business processes the freedom to evolve;
Bringing together recognized expertise in end-to-end IT security, Bull secures data and exchanges that are so critical in preserving customers' business integrity.

Bull has a particularly strong presence in the public, healthcare, finance, telecommunications, manufacturing and defense sectors. Its distribution network and business partners cover more than 60 countries worldwide. For more information visit: http://www.bull.com.

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Source: Bull

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