Supercomputer manufacturer Cray has been awarded a $54 million contract to provide the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) with two next-generation Cray XC supercomputers and a Cray Sonexion storage system.
Based in Seoul, Korea, KMA is a weather forecasting and climate research centre. It will use the supercomputers to provide more accurate weather forecasts through increased model resolution, new forecasting models, increased ensemble sizes, and advanced data assimilation.
Kyung Heoun Lee, Director of the National Centre for Meteorological Supercomputing at KMA said: ‘KMA is responsible for providing services for the protection of life and property in the form of weather and climate information. We live in a weather-sensitive environment, and people and businesses increasing rely on us for accurate environmental forecasting. Our new Cray supercomputers will be a valuable resource for us to meet our strategic, operational and research objectives.’
‘Weather forecasting and climate research play vital roles in societies across the globe, and we are honoured that KMA, one of the premier centres in this important industry, has once again selected a Cray system to meet their demanding requirements,’ said Andrew Wyatt, Cray vice president, APMEA. ‘We have developed a long, collaborative relationship with KMA over the years.’
Cray will provide KMA with an integrated, multi-petaflop supercomputing infrastructure designed for operational resiliency. The system will include two Cray XC systems – one of which will be used for production and the other for research and back-up – and a multi-petabyte Cray Sonexion storage system. The system will be a next-generation version of the current XC30.
The storage solution at KMA will include 21.7 petabytes of capacity and 270 gigabytes per-second of applications performance. Cray’s Sonexion storage system combines Cray’s Lustre expertise with a design that allows scalability from five gigabytes per-second to more than a terabyte per-second in a single file system – and performs optimally at scale. Management is simplified through an appliance design with all storage components including software, storage and infrastructure.
Consisting of products and services, the multi-year multi-phase contract is valued at more than $54 million, and final system delivery is expected to be completed in 2015.
