$2.4M computer system gives UA research boost

ALAN FISCHER

Published: 02.15.2008

Tucson Citizen

University of Arizona researchers look forward to a big boost from a high-performance supercomputing system that goes online Monday.

The new $900,000 SGI Altix ICE system, which contains 1,392 clustered computer central processing units, joins an SGI Altix 4700 system containing 628 CPUs installed in March, said Mike Bruck, assistant director for research computing at University Information Technology Services.

The $2.4-million combined 2020-CPU supercomputer system offers 33 times more computing power than the old system it replaced, Bruck said.

“This resource will open new areas by virtue of allowing us to examine larger data sets, allowing us to scale our research projects to dimensions that normally would not be feasible,” said Nirav Merchant, interim director of cyberinfrastructure development at the iPlant Collaborative, a $50 million plant science research project based at the UA BIO5 Institute.

“It will also allow us to analyze more data in a shorter time,” Merchant said. “This machine will also facilitate more exhaustive analysis of our data sets.”

The new computer system is also more compact, Bruck said. It is housed in nine computer cabinets, compared to 18 cabinets needed to house the 256-CPU HP Alpha system it replaced, he said.

The new system is water-cooled, which uses less energy than the old air-cooled system, said Craig Cook, computer operations manager at UITS.

Circulated chilled water removes heat generated by the computers similar to the way a car radiator works, he said.

The warmed water is returned by pipe to a UA water chilling plant to be used again, he said.

This cooling system has allowed UITS, 1077 N. Highland Ave., to discontinue use of a 20-ton air conditioning unit formerly required to keep the old computers at a proper operating temperature, Cook said.

Energy savings on cooling the machines in the data center area where about 200 servers, including the ICE and 4700 systems, are located, totals 20 percent, he said. He could not provide a precise dollar amount for the savings.

“It’s a very environmentally friendly way to do it,” he said.

It won’t take long for UA researchers to take advantage of the increased capacity, Bruck said.

When the 4700 unit was installed in March and increased computing capability by seven times, it took only three weeks for researchers to reach the system’s greater capacity, he said.

“I anticipate it will take three or four weeks to use up the extra capacity in ICE,” Bruck said.

“If you build it, they will come,” Cook said.

Researchers benefit on several fronts by using a centrally located high performance computer compared to having smaller machines in each lab, Cook said.

The central system provides infrastructure, such as a building, primary and backup power sources, maintenance and security, Cook said. “Centralization saves a lot of money,” he said.

“They don’t need to worry about running the machines or keeping them operational,” Bruck said.

“Having it administered and fine-tuned centrally allows us to focus on the research questions without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure or attempting to optimize it,” Merchant said.

“If we did not have this resource we would have to invest in everything from the ground up making the iPlant project more expensive,” Merchant said.

UA research projects contributed about $580,000 of the $2.4 million cost, Bruck said.

UA has used a computer system shared by researchers campuswide for 20 years, Bruck said.

As technology improves and cost comes down, the school updates or gets a new high-performance computer system every three to four years, he said.

That was the normal time for a system replacement and upgrade, he said.

additional information

iPlant Collaborative site: http://iplantcollaborative.org/

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