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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Interview with John Feo, Pacific Northwest Lab about the usage of the Cray XMT

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

John Feo is the director of the Center for Adaptive Supercomputer Software (CASS) at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory. John and his team are using a Cray XMT 1 supercomputer since three years to study a large spectrum of applications like graphs algorithms, Dynamic network analysis (DNA), Emerging Subnetwork Patterns, bioinformatics, semantic search, and semantic database development.

The CASS group is also developing compilers and runtime systems to improve the compilation of code and is working on new programming models for highly multithreated machines like the XMT.

For John one important application of  the Cray XMT will be in companies like Facebook, Google, or banks doing graphs algorithms, semantic search and knowledge discovery on huge data sets.

In this interview John explains the particularities of developing applications for this new kind of architectures and how his team is supporting users and scientists in porting their code.

hpc-ch Forum on GPU – Video on Cray XK6 Overview

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Nicola Bianchi (CSCS) presents the last supercomputer arrival at CSCS: The Cray XK6 supercomputer which is a trifecta of scalar, network and many-core innovation. It combines Cray´s proven Gemini interconnect, AMD’s leading multi-core scalar processors and NVIDIA´s powerful many-core GPU processors to create a true, productive hybrid supercomputer.

Download the slides of the presentation (PDF) »

hpc-ch Forum on GPU – Video on GPU Use at the University of Basel

Monday, November 21st, 2011

In October hpc-ch organized together with the University of Basel a Forum on the Use of GPU and Accelerators for HPC. In a series of articles we publish the videos of the presentations.

Martin Jacquot (Universitiy of Basel) was hosting the event and presented the implementation and usage of GPU at the University of Basel.

Download the slides of the presentation (PDF) »

Registration Open: Swiss Distributed Computing Day, November 28

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

SwiNG, the Swiss National Grid Association is inviting to participate in the

Swiss Distributed Computing Day, University of Berne, 28 November 2011
http://www.swing-grid.ch/event/516553-swiss-distributed-computing-day

The Swiss Distributed Computing Day is an annual meeting for users and providers of distributed computing technologies. This year’s focus is on:

  • Grid computing
  • Cloud computing
  • HPC resources

The even is free of charge. Please register here »

Agenda

9:45 – 10:15    Registration/Coffee

10:15 – 10:25  Welcome, Heinz Stockinger, SwiNG and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics

10:25 – 10:50  Distributed Computing Infrastructures for Swiss Science,  Sigve Haug, SwiNG and University of Bern

10:50 – 11:15  Swiss Multi-Science Computing Grid, Placi Flury, SWITCH

Technology Session – I

11:15 – 11:40 HPC technology update – challenges or chances, Thomas Schoenemeyer, Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS)

11:40 – 12:05 Scientific and Technical Applications as a Service in the Cloud, Wibke Sudholt, CloudBroker GmbH and EuroCloud Swiss

12:05 – 12:30 Using a Cloud based System to provide Web Site Hosting – Webvanta CMS,  Thibaut Siegmann, Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI)

12:30 – 13:30    lunch

Science session

13:30 – 13:55 Swiss Experiment: A distributed infrastructure for storage and processing of environmental data, with advanced access and annotation support, Michael Lehning, WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF

13:55 – 14:20 Computational Challenges in the Life Sciences, Ioannis Xenarios, SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics

14:20 – 14:45 Computational Chemistry on the Grid, Timm Reumann, University of Zurich

14:45 – 15:10 High Energy Physics, TBD

Industry session

15:30 – 15:55    Google Cloud for Data Crunchers, Akos Frohner, Google Inc.

15:55 – 16:20   Elastic Enterprise Data Warehouse Query Log Analysis on a Secure Private Cloud, Kurt Stockinger, Credit Suisse AG

16:20 – 16:55    Databases in the cloud – Experience with SQL Azure, Fabio Consani, ETH Zurich

Technology Session – II

16:55 – 17:20    Cloud computing – VM-MAD Project, Sergio Maffioletti, SwiNG and University of Zurich

17:20 – 17:55   Swiss Wide Resource Booking System Project,  Dean Flanders, SwiNG and Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI)

Video: First Cray XK6 Worldwide Just Powered Up at CSCS

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

Engineers of Cray are powering up for the first time worldwide a Cray XK6 delivered to a customer. CSCS was the first supercomputing centre signing a contract with Cray for the delivery of a Cray XK6 with 2816 cores, 176 GPU for a total of 137 TF. CSCS nicknamed the supercomputer “Tödi” after the name of a Swiss mountain.

The Cray XK6 supercomputer combines Cray´s Gemini interconnect, AMD’s multi-core scalar processors and NVIDIA´s many-core GPU processors. Shortly the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) signed a contract with Cray to upgrade the Cray XT5 supercomputer nicknamed “Jaguar”  to a new Cray XK6 supercomputer, which will be nicknamed “Titan.” When completed, the Titan system will have a peak performance between 10 and 20 PF.