IBM MareNostrum
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MareNostrum is the most powerful supercomputer in Europe [1] (and the world's fifth most powerful) as of November 2006, according to the LINPACK benchmark. It was presented by IBM and María Jesús San Segundo, the Spanish Minister of Education and Science. The supercomputer consists of 2560 JS21 blade computing nodes[2], each with 2 dual-core IBM 64-bit PowerPC 970MP processors running at 2.3 GHz for 10240 CPUs in total.
The computing nodes of MareNostrum communicate primarily through a high bandwidth, low latency Myrinet network consisting of integrated Myrinet adapters on each server blade and switched fabric of 12 Myrinet switches. In addition, there is a more traditional local area network consisting of Gigabit Ethernet adapters and five Gigabit Ethernet switches (one Force10 E600 and four Cisco 3550s). The MareNostrum supercomputer has 20 TB of RAM and 280 TB of external disk storage for more persistent storage.
MareNostrum features BladeCenter JS21 blade servers and uses the Linux operating system. It is capable of 62.63 teraflops and a peak performance of 94,208 teraflops according to the LINPACK benchmark. It occupies only 120 m² (less than half a basketball court) and weighs 40,000 kg. The original installation was largely constructed in two months in Madrid and was installed in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center at the Technical University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain. It has since been upgraded with additional processors to reach the current total.
The supercomputer is used in human genome research, protein research, weather forecasting and the design of new drugs. It was booted up for the first time on 12 April 2005, and is now available to the national and international scientific community.
Mare Nostrum (in Latin, "our sea") was the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea. It is thought to signify not only the location but also the vast power of this computing resource.
[edit] References
- June, 2005 Top 500 supercomputer list Retrieved July 21, 2005
- November, 2006 Top 500 supercomputer list Retrieved November 14, 2006
- Barcelona Supercomputer Center Retrieved November 14, 2006
