NEWS BRIEFS
The Computer Center of Karlsruhe University received IBM’s Shared University Research (SUR) Award. This prize is given to academic research groups worldwide which open new application areas for products and solutions in information technology. The donation of 850 000 DM (425 000 Euro) was used to extend the existing 256 processor IBM RS/6000 SP. Additionally the Federal Republic and the State of Baden-W∏rttemberg gave money, according to the Hochschulbauf rderungsgesetz, for more processors. Both activities resulted in 48 SMP WinterHawk Thin Nodes, dual Power3 processors (375 MHz), and four High Nodes, 8 processor SMPs. This gave the Center a threefold peak performance.
SUR Award
Academic research groups worldwide can receive this award, which open new application areas for products and solutions in information technology. Professor Dr. Wilfried Juling received the award for extraordinary research in the field of high-performance Computing. It is the highest award outside USA, that was given by IBM for the long time research cooperation with the big IBM Labs. It is an acknowledgment of the Centers work in this field. Connected with this grant is a research cooperation with IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in New York. In this the Computer Center and some other institutes of Karlsruhe University as well as some well known independent software vendors will participate. The aim is the further development of existing programming techniques and application programs. Using simulation programs on the fastest computers of today, the behavior of applications on the next generation of microprocessors can be studied and optimized today. Professor Dr. Sigmar Wittig, Rector of Karlsruhe, proudly mentioned that the grant is an acknowledgment for the Technical University, as it improving the industrial and economic development in close cooperation with industrial partners like IBM. Furtheron the award shows that Karlsruhe University plays in the first league. Erwin Staudt, General Manager IBM Germany GmbH, commented: “The University Karlsruhe was and is a highly welcomed research partner. The Karlsruhe computer competence is since several years highly respected in our research labs in USA”. Ernst Kola, General Manager IBM Germany gumbo and General Manager Global Services Central Region, added: “This grant and the continued cooperation with IBM positions the scientific location Baden-W∏rttemberg in the international comparison”. Professor Juling commented this award: “Instead of starting to port applications, when the new processors are available, our partners and we can go the way for the usage of modern Power4 processors today.
The new hardware configuration
Actually the Computer Center used the —old” IBM RS/6000 SP with 256 thin and wide nodes with an aggregated peak performance of 105 GFlop/s and 120 GB main memory. The additional system has 52 nodes with 128 CPUs and 192 GFlop/s peak performance and 128 GB main memory. The additional 52 nodes will be installed as a separate machine. It consists of 48 WinterHawk-2 thin nodes, SMP systems with two Power3 processors (375 MHz) and a processor peak performance of 1.5 GFlop/s. The node memory is 2 GB. The other 4 nodes are NightHawk-2 high nodes. These SMP systems contain 8 processors with 8 GB memory and 12 GFlop/s per node. Both machines are integrated in a uniform operations environment. Thus a change from one system to the other is easily possible. By using the batch system Loadleveler jobs can easily be sent from one system to the other.
Multilevel Parallelization for the Power4
The Computer Center now cooperates with the Advanced Computing Technology Center (ACTC) at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in a joint research project, to develop programming techniques for future computer architectures. Additionally some institutes of Karlsruhe Universities from the fluid research and automotive as well as some well-known independent software vendors will participate.
IBM will install simulation software that enables the users to simulate the behavior of the future Power4 systems. This —Gigahertz” processor operates with a clock frequency of more than 1 Ghz. Two of those processors are in one chip. Four of those chips are integrated on one module – multichip module. This node is the building block of future parallel computers.
The analysis and the evaluation of programming techniques and the adaption of programs for these new computer architectures are central for this research project.
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