hpc-ch » Monte Rosa

CSCS to Double Computing Power of «Monte Rosa»

mdl — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:12:36 +0000

Seattle, WA and Manno, Switzerland – May 17, 2011 – Global supercomputer leader Cray Inc. announced that it has signed a contract with the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) to upgrade its current Cray XT5 system, nicknamed “Monte Rosa” to a Cray XE6 supercomputer. The Monte Rosa system at CSCS will be upgraded with Cray’s Gemini system interconnect and the new AMD Opteron™ 6200 Series processors (code-named “Interlagos”).

The upgrade is expected to be completed later this year, and will provide researchers and scientists with a Cray XE6 supercomputer with more than 400 teraflops of computing power. The upgraded system will equip the Swiss scientific and industrial community with the computing resources necessary to stay competitive on an international level as CSCS supports scientists working in diverse fields such as chemistry, physics, material sciences, climatology, geology, biology, genetics, experimental medicine, astronomy, mathematics and computer sciences.

Professor Dr. Thomas Schulthess, Director of CSCS said, “Monte Rosa, our Cray XT5 supercomputer at CSCS, is oversubscribed and we are very much looking forward to meeting this high user demand with the upgraded system this fall. Our experience with an early Cray XE6 test system is so exciting that I am certain we will be able to deliver an even better service to our users with the upgraded Monte Rosa machine, making them even more competitive at an international level.”

Cray has a history of supplying the Centre with cutting-edge high performance computing technologies. CSCS is home to two Cray XT4 systems running operational numerical weather forecasts. CSCS was the first Cray customer in Europe to install a Cray XT3 supercomputer in 2005, the first Cray customer worldwide to install a Cray XE6 supercomputer in June 2010, and the Centre will be the first customer worldwide for Cray’s next-generation Cray XMT system, which is expected to be delivered later this year.

“CSCS is one of the world’s premier high performance computing facilities, and we are proud of the successful relationship we have developed with CSCS by providing Swiss scientists with Cray’s most advanced supercomputing technologies,” said Dr. Ulla Thiel, Cray vice president, Europe. “The Monte Rosa upgrade and the science program HP2C underline the leadership role of CSCS, and we are honored that Cray continues to play a crucial role for CSCS and its HPC user community.”

The current upgrade is part of a series of initiatives in Switzerland to foster high performance computing in science and engineering. Significant investments have been made and are planned by the Federal Council of Switzerland for the development of applications that run at scale and make efficient use of the next generation of supercomputers. This is the goal of the Swiss Platform for High-Performance and High-Productivity Computing (HP2C), which is jointly operated by CSCS and the Institute for Computational Sciences at the University of Lugano.

The Cray XE6 supercomputer combines Cray’s Gemini system interconnect with powerful AMD Opteron™ processors and is designed to bring production petascale computing to a new and expanded base of HPC users. Fully upgradeable from the Cray XT5 and Cray XT6 line of supercomputers, the Cray XE6 system delivers improved interconnect performance and features additional enhancements such as improved network resiliency, a mature and scalable software environment and the ability to run a broad array of ISV applications with the latest version of the Cray Linux Environment. This collection of industry-leading features provides Cray XE6 users with a supercomputing system that combines true scalable performance with production reliability.

Datacenter Knowledge reporting on Video with the Assembling of Monte Rosa

mdl — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:05:24 +0000

Datacenter Knowledge is kindly reporting about the movie with the assembling of the Cray XT 5 supercomputer “Monte Rosa” at CSCS. Even if the video is almost two years old (May 2009), it is still worth to have a look.

Read the article on Datacenter Knowledge »

Videos Rosa Introduction Course Summer 2010 Now Online

mdl — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 06:00:44 +0000

In Summer 2010 CSCS organized a two days introduction course to Rosa and the Cray environment. The videos of the different presentations are now available online on the multimedia portal of CSCS and ETH Zurich. You are invited to have a look to the videos if you want an introduction to parallel computing in general or want to know how to program a Cray XT5.

Chaper 1: An Introduction to Rosa by Neil Stringfellow, CSCS

Chapter 2: Input Output on Rosa by Jason Temple, CSCS

Chapter 3: ompiling and Executing Codes by Tim Robinson, CSCS

Chpter 4: Performance Analysis an a Cray XT5 by Andreas Jocksch, CSCS

Chapter 5: Additional Profiling Tools by Jean-Guillaume Piccinali, CSCS

Chapter 6: Parallel Debuggin on Rosa by Tim Stitt, CSCS

Monte Rosa: One Year Later

mdl — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:00:54 +0000

In June of 2009 Monte Rosa was inaugurated at CSCS (see the article on this blog). During the last year Rosa has been working day and night providing cycles to the Swiss researcher community. In this year the number of cores used by the jobs increased rapidly: 57% of the jobs use now more than 512 cores and 33% of the jobs use even more than 2048 cores (status first quarter 2010). 24% of the users are from fluid dynamics and 23% are from physics, followed by nanoscience (12%), earth and environmental sciences (11%) and chemistry (8%).

In the TOP500 ranking Rosa started at rank 23 (June 2009), moved after an upgrade to position 21 (November 2009) and is now at position 27 (June 2010).

We created a movie showing the assembly of Monte Rosa, if you want to have a look click on the image here below or follow this link »

CRAY XT5 code porting workshop

mdl — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:57:38 +0000

Last July CSCS organized a Cray XT5 code porting workshop with representatives of Cray Inc. and of the University of Zurich.

Now the different presentation are available online on the multimedia portal of ETH Zurich.

We are sorry for the low quality of the videos. We will soon publish other workshops in a higher video quality.

Swiss TV (SF1 10vor10) reports about CSCS and HPCN strategy

mdl — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:34:14 +0000

On October 20, 2009 the Swiss TV reported on the late news trasmission 10vor10 about the new Supercomputer installed at CSCS and the Swiss National HPC strategy (HPCN).

Neuer Supercomputer in Lugano
In Manno bei Lugano steht das Rechenzentrum der ETH Zürich. Seit ein paar Wochen steht dort der neuste Supercomputer der Schweiz, der drittschnellste von ganz Europa. Dieser Grossrechner verarbeitet riesige Datenmengen für die Forschung und Industrie. In ein paar Wochen wird er offiziell eingeweiht.

Have a look to the broadcast:

SF Videoportal 10vor10

Inauguration of Monte Rosa, the fastest Swiss Supercomputer at CSCS

mdl — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:00:42 +0000

On September 18, 2009 the new supercomputer named Monte Rosa at CSCS has been officially inaugured by the President of ETH Board, Fritz Schiesser and the President of ETH Zurich, Prof. Ralph Eichler.

Read about the inaguration on an article of ETH Life

Article on ETH Life about Inauguration of Monte Rosa at CSCS

ETH Life reports on CSCS: The third fastest supercomputing centre in Europe

mdl — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:00:10 +0000

ETH Life reports on CSCS being the third fastest supercomputing centre in Europe:

Today, Tuesday, the list of the 500 fastest computers in the world was announced at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg. The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) run by ETH Zurich came 23rd with its Cray XT5. Only two European computer centers are faster.

Article on ETH Life

Read the article on ETH Life »