Avi Blizovsky
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The list of the 500 most powerful computers in the world: IBM leads in performance, in the number of installations, and in total processing power
"IBM continues to hear about its position as the clear leader in the list of the 500 most powerful computers in the world, with 43.2% of the systems and 49.3% of the installed processing capacity. HP, in second place, owns 34.6% of installations and 21% of performance. There is no other manufacturer that occupies more than 7% in any category". This is stated by the 24th edition of the list of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world, which is published in cooperation between the universities of Mannheim in Germany, Knoxville Tennessee, and Berkeley California.
IBM's BlueGene/L computer beta system, installed for the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, ranks first on the list, with a performance of 70,72 teraflops (a trillion calculation operations per second). In second place is a computer made by SGI built for the Ames laboratories of the American space agency, with a performance of 51.87 teraflops. New technologies incorporated in these two assemblies allowed them to push into third place the Earth simulation computer, licensed by NEC, which held first place since it was installed, in 2002.
Other significant changes in the list of the top ten include another BlueGene system, which was installed in Spain, which occupies the fourth place and is the most powerful computer in Europe, with 20,53 tera-flops, and a "Sufek-Mac" computer based on Apple servers, which stands in seventh place, with 12.25 Teraflops.
For the first time since the list was published, the total cumulative power of the computers included in it crossed the peta-flops threshold, and it now stands at 1.127 meta-flops compared to 813 tera-flops only six months ago.
54 systems in the list are based on IBM POWER processors - and 5 of them are in the first ten places. 48 are based on HP Risc PA processors, 31 on AMD processors and the rest - on Intel processors. The cluster architecture is the most popular configuration on the list, with 296 systems.
In a geographic analysis, the trend of growth in the number of systems in Asia outside of Japan stands out: the list includes 30 systems in Japan - and 57 in other Asian countries. Europe is still ahead of Asia, with 127 systems. A significant jump was registered in the field of supercomputing in China, with 17 supercomputers compared to only 9 a year ago. The number of supercomputers in the US also increased, from 247 to 267.
Computing on IBM: smashing performance records and moving from scientific research to the business world
IBM's BlueGene/L supercomputer, built for the United States Department of Energy, this month recorded the highest performance ever achieved by any system: 70.72 billion computation operations per second (teraflop/s), using the industry benchmark LINPACK . Although for now the computer installed in the Lawrence Livermore laboratories in California is only operating at a quarter of its final planned scope, it already guarantees American supremacy for the coming years in the field of supercomputing.
IBM supercomputers hold first place in the list of the 500 most powerful systems in the world, published this month, and in four of the first ten places. (1,4,8,9).
IBM's Blue Gene systems are the supercomputers enjoying the highest growth rates in the industry.
BlueGene/L is the result of many years of joint research and development by IBM and the US Nuclear Security Administration laboratories. The computer is designed for computing experimental tasks that will ensure the safety and reliability of the US nuclear weapons stockpile - without the need for underground nuclear tests.
Supercomputing is the backbone of the collaboration between government institutions, research bodies and computing companies. The US Department of Energy has long become one of the bodies promoting the supercomputer industry - in a process that encourages the commercial use of these technologies, and the rapid transfer of technological and scientific breakthroughs, carried out in part in IBM laboratories - to the world of actual application.
Solving scientific problems in the fields of chemistry, physics, and materials science requires a high processing capacity - even if it sometimes places relatively modest needs in the area of memory consumption. The US Nuclear Energy Security Administration runs advanced simulations and computer programs on these systems that examine, among other things, the aging processes of nuclear weapons. Understanding the physical properties of the fissile materials that make up these weapons is possible through a three-dimensional simulation of the material's structure - possible thanks to the special structure of BlueGene/L, which is adapted to support calculations on a larger scale than ever before.
The use of BlueGene/L will shorten the processing time required for a long series of computing problems. Thus, for example, a processing task that in 2003 required a month's days of work on the computer that was ranked third that year in the list of supercomputers in the world - will require only three days on the new computer, which is only a quarter of BlueGene's planned final configuration. The computer, in its final configuration, will be 9 times more powerful than the Earth simulation computer currently operating in Japan - and will require only one seventh of its current consumption, and one fourteenth of the floor space. The indicators of electricity consumption and the space required are especially important for academic research institutions, industrial developers and government bodies, which need efficient supercomputer systems.
The most powerful computer in the world
On November 4, the US Department of Energy announced that a 16-rack version of the IBM eServer BlueGene supercomputer has become the most powerful computer in the world. A much larger version, BlueGene/L, is now being developed at IBM, and is expected to be delivered to the US government next year.
The new computer provides a stabilized performance of 70.72 teraflops, and a peak performance of 91.75. The 16 cabinets integrate 16,384 processing nodes, each of which has two PowerPC processors - and a total of 32,768 processors, operating at a speed of 700 MHz, and relying on a central memory of 512MB per processing node. A new and efficient design approach makes this machine 50 times more compact and reduces its current consumption to 1/14 of the current consumption of the Earth simulation computer, which operates in Japan, and which until now held the first place in the list of supercomputers.
IBM's unique architecture enables the new computer to have a midrange range, density, efficiency in current consumption and an improved ratio of cost to performance - while relying on industry standards, and using the Linux operating system that operates in open source code. The size of each of the base cabinets is similar to that of a large domestic refrigerator, and its current consumption is equivalent to the total current consumption of the average modern home.
In order to understand the processing power of the new computer, you can use the following example: if each single calculation operation required only one second - it would take 2,219,000 years to complete the calculation operations performed by Blue Gene/L in only one second.
When this computer is completed, in 2005, the gap enjoyed by IBM at the top of the world's supercomputers is expected to widen and grow. The complete computer will be able to process data at the rate of a complete trabit every second - equivalent to the data output of ten thousand weather forecasting satellites, for example.
The final configuration of Blue Gene/L will include 65,536 processing nodes, including over 130,000 processors. Each such processor includes two units for floating point commands - which are two separate engines for mathematical processing. All two nodes sit on one module - processing blade -. 16 such blades are packed in a shield unit, and 32 units are installed in a single base cabinet.
In total, 64 base cabinets will be installed in the Lawrence Livermore laboratories, each of which will be managed by 1,024 input-output nodes - all under a specially adapted version of the Linux operating system.
Compared to IBM's ASCI White computer, which at the time was the most powerful supercomputer in the US and occupied an area similar to that of two basketball courts, Blue Gene/L will fit into the area of only half a tennis court.
The Blue Gene/L project was launched in November 2001, when the collaboration between IBM and Lawrence Livermore Laboratories was announced. Later, the collaboration was expanded to include the US Department of Defense. Two years later, in November 2003, a prototype with 1,000 processors already registered a performance of 1.4 teraflops - which put it in 73rd place in the list of the 400 most powerful computers in the world.
In February of this year, IBM and the Dutch Foundation for Astronomical Research announced a joint research effort that will be based on the Blue Gene/L supercomputer technology. In May, Argonne National Laboratories announced its intention to acquire such a computer. In June, a prototype with 8,000 processors recorded a performance of 11.68 tera-flops, and entered - together with a prototype with 4,000 processors - in the list of the 500 most powerful computers in the world.
And now: the commercial version of Blue Gene
Only a few days after Blue Gene, in its partial release, established itself at the top of the supercomputers in the world - IBM announced the availability to customers of a commercial version of this supercomputer. The announcement opens a new era in the history of computing, where massively parallel computers are packaged and adapted to business needs: they are smaller, cheaper, easier to use - and promise to bring about a revolution in the computing server industry.
IBM eServer Blue Gene uses the advanced architecture of IBM's POWER processors and cooling technologies and advanced cluster configuration, in order to offer a song performance of 5.7 teraflops for business, scientific and commercial applications - while crunching a fraction of the foam surface required for previous generations of supercomputers. With a base area of less than one square meter - the system offered ten times higher performance and more compared to the known and unknown supercomputers in the market today.
The new IBM computer, available for immediate delivery, at prices starting at 1.5 million dollars. IBM also allows businesses and research and development organizations to rent this computing power, by contracting with one of its supercomputer centers in the US or Europe, while paying according to actual use.
Blue Gene is the result of a long-term research and development effort at IBM, in which over a hundred million dollars were directly invested. The first applications of these unique IBM technologies were recorded in the world of protein research and the interpretation of the genetic code - which gave rise to the name that this series of computers bears.
IBM collaborates with a series of business partners and software developers, in order to adapt Blue Gene to work in a series of scientific and business fields. Together with universities, Roman research laboratories and other bodies, IBM develops applications and software code that use the system in the fields of life sciences, financial models, hydrodynamics, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, astronomy and space research, and climate models. Other areas of interest in which IBM deals and adapts its systems to operation, include grid computing, data mining, risk analysis, studies and tests in the field of aerodynamics, and manufacturing processes.
In order to help customers and facilitate access to Blue Gene resources, IBM is developing a first-of-its-kind program of using its supercomputer centers in a pay-as-you-go model, with access through a dedicated virtual private network for this purpose.
A supercomputer the size of a TV set
The first hint of its intention to bring Blue Gene to the commercial world was provided by IBM last year, when it introduced a supercomputer the size of a 30-inch television set, which was ranked 73rd on the list of the world's most powerful supercomputers.
With a performance of 2 teraflops - 2 trillion operations per second - the scaled-down prototype of the Blue Gene/L computer made by IBM managed to take a respectable place on the list - even though its entire size does not exceed one cubic meter.
The full version of the computer, now being built by IBM for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, will be 128 times larger. Upon completion, in 2005, this computer is expected to top the list of the most powerful computers in the world.
Blue Gene/L's entry into the list of the 500 most powerful systems in the world signifies a breakthrough in the way super servers are built, which will expand the range of applications running on such machines. This computer is twenty times smaller than servers with similar performance such as cluster configurations of Linux systems. 2 teraflops of computing power today require entire computer rooms, and dozens of racks. The dramatic reduction of current consumption, construction costs and space requirements allows IBM engineers to place massive parallel computing within the reach of scientists and engineers in a wide variety of research and industry fields.
As part of the Blue Gene project, IBM is developing a family of supercomputers adapted to broadband tasks, with a flexible midrange range, and the ability to handle large amounts of information with minimal current consumption. Among the first applications that make use of the capabilities unique to IBM's Blue Gene family - running advanced models of how the human DNA helix folds. Deciphering these processes will allow a better understanding of the essence of various diseases - and open up new ways of healing.
The first machine in this family, Blue Gene/L, is expected to provide performance of 360 teraflops - 360 trillion calculation operations per second. The 64 base cabinets that will make up this computer will occupy an area that is about half the size of a tennis court. The scientists plan to use this computer for space research, the behavior of pairs of stars moving in even orbits, the simulation of processes in an environment that combines laser and plasma, and the aging processes of explosives and old nuclear materials.
The most powerful computer in Europe - and the fourth in the world
At the beginning of this month, the Ministry of Education of Spain inaugurated the most powerful supercomputer in Europe - designed and manufactured by IBM. The computer running in a Linux environment will integrate a total of 4,564 IBM Power processors. It is designed for a wide range of scientific research tasks in the fields of the human genome, protein folding and replication processes, drug development and climate change research.
The MareNostrum computer, which operates in Madrid, displaces HP from the top of the supercomputers in Europe - and ranks fourth in the list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. Already in its initial configuration, which includes only 3,564 of the 4,564 processors on which it will be based in its final configuration, the computer performs 20,530 teraflops. The final configuration is expected to provide 31,363 tera-flops in regular work - and a peak performance of over 40 tera-flops.
The floor area required for the new computer is less than 160 square meters, and it consumes only 600 kilowatts. Unlike other supercomputers, the system does not require any additional cooling.
The installation of the computer in Madrid was completed in record time, less than two months, after it was previously built and tested at IBM facilities in the USA. Soon, the system will be transferred to its final home, at the University of Barcelona, where it will be operated at full capacity in the spring of 2005.
They knew how to compute
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