NCSA NEWS

University of Kentucky Upgrades Computing System

released August 22, 2000

The University of Kentucky, an Alliance PACS partner, is replacing its Hewlett-Packard SPP X-Class Exemplar supercomputer with a cluster of HP N-Class servers. Benchmarking of the new HP N-4000 complex placed UK 10th out of 17 academic computing centers in the US and 200th on the worlwide list of the top 500 supercomputing sites.

In contrast to the SPP Exemplar, which is a single server with 64 processors, Kentucky's new supercomputer consists of 12 HP N-4000 servers interconnected by a high-speed, low-latency "hyperfabric" network. Each of the 12 individual nodes has eight PA-8500 processors running at 440 MHz, for a total of 96 processors. The PA-8500 processor is approximately twice as fast as the processors used in the SPP Exemplar.

In order to make users aware of changes caused by transfer to the new system, staff at the KU computing center will offer a series of workshops to familiarize users about the NCX cluster, and provide information about programming and optimization techniques. Kentucky began transferring users to the HP N-4000 cluster in late July. The SPP Exemplar system will remain available for a short period during the transition. Users who need assistance making their codes work on the new system should send email to help@hpc.uky.edu.

More information is available on the UK high performance computing page at http://hpc.uky.edu/ and in the August edition of data link at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SCD/Alliance/datalink/.

 

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