The International Fusion Energy Research Center (IFRC) in Rokkasho, Japan, is using Allinea Software's DDT and OPT debugging and optimising/profiling solutions, in conjunction with the CEA and Bull.
Earlier this year the CEA (on behalf of F4E) selected Bull to provide, maintain and operate the computer that is to be installed at Rokkasho (Japan). This computer is intended to allow the most advanced modelling and simulation in the field of plasmas and controlled fusion equipment. It will be available to European and Japanese researchers for a period of five years from January 2012.
With computational power from Bull exceeding that of 1 Petaflop, it ranks as one of the most powerful systems in the world. The supercomputer is an important milestone of Europe’s contribution to the Broader Approach (BA), an agreement signed between Europe and Japan to complement the ITER project through various R&D activities, which are developed in the field of nuclear fusion.
François Robin, leader of the CEA’s contribution in the project, explains: 'As with the introduction of Bull, the selection of Allinea Software is another positive step for this project. Allinea DDT is an impressive and complete toolset for parallel debugging at any scale which will ensure that the aims of the project are attainable.'
Olivier David, ISV alliances director at Bull, comments: 'The bullx supercomputer dedicated to ITER is one of the largest systems in the world, and we needed a debugging solution that can rise up to the challenges of such a petascale system. Allinea is able to address scale and GPU challenges, and has considerable expertise in the parallel field. Moving forward, the DDT debugger will be available to run on the full size of the system in Japan.'
