UK-based HPC integrator Integrex HPC has won a bid to supply a 1,000 core cluster to Keele University. Due for installation in December 2012, the system is unique in that 256 cores of the cluster will be connected via the latest Numascale fabric, with the remaining cores connected via QDR InfiniBand.
The total solution will be unified under a single cluster management solution adopting IBM Platform HPC Suite 3.2. Under this environment, jobs are submitted via LSF (Load Share Facility) to either the InfiniBand nodes or to the Numascale machine with 576GB RAM and 256 cores. The Numa machine comprises 8 x 36 core servers acting as a single machine with single operating system image.
The system will provide a test bed for Dr Raphael Hirschi at Keele University, who will comprehensively contrast and compare the two architectures. An ERC starting grant worth 1.4 Million Euro has been awarded to Keele Academic in order to fund a five-year multi-disciplinary project entitled SHYNE (Stellar HYdrodynamics, Nucleosynthesis and Evolution), which starts November 2012. The grant will enable Dr Hirschi to build a team of two post-doctoral researchers and two PhD students, all based at Keele, and to acquire the dedicated computer cluster.
