SCD News: September 29, 2005
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Bluevista will nearly double the number of computational cycles available to users. |
A new supercomputer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will enable scientists to tackle complex scientific questions in half the time. NCAR has nicknamed the computer bluevista.
NCAR will continue to operate its other supercomputers, an IBM POWER4-based machine and an IBM e1350 Linux Cluster, along with bluevista. The combined computational power of the three supercomputers places NCAR among the top 25 institutions worldwide as measured by computational capacity, estimates Tom Bettge, deputy director of NCAR's Scientific Computing Division.
The new machine's first challenge will be to study the effects of tropical convection on hurricanes and other tropical weather systems, using a regional climate model embedded in a global model. This work is relevant to the question of whether global climate change is helping produce more Category 4 and 5 hurricanes (the most powerful). The problem is so demanding, computationally, that it will occupy all of bluevista's available time from October through December.
“We expect that most jobs will run twice as fast with bluevista here,” says Bettge. “That means more people can get more science done.” NCAR purchased the machine with ongoing funding provided by its primary sponsor, the National Science Foundation, as well as funding from other agencies.
The new machine is an IBM p575 based on IBM's POWER5 processor. It was delivered to NCAR in late August, and software installation began on September 6. Testing will continue throughout the fall.
The machine is smaller, denser, and hotter than its predecessor, the IBM POWER4-based unit. Bluevista takes up only a third as much floor space as the older supercomputer but requires two-thirds as much power and cooling. Bettge estimates that bluevista will need over 250 kilowatts of power to operate. The average personal computer consumes 0.12 kilowatts.
The new processor, along with other design improvements, allows bluevista's internal “clock”—the number of operations it performs each second—to run about twice as fast as its predecessor.
The research on tropical convection is a major step forward in developing a model that can seamlessly move between studies of local weather and of global climate, using the correct scale for each type of problem. The study will also include research into the effects of ocean conditions on global weather.
NCAR'S primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.
Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
For more about Blue Vista, see:
http://www.scd.ucar.edu/news/05/lead/0903.bluevista.html
For
more about the IBM eServer p5 575, see:
http://www.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/highend/575.html
Anatta, NCAR Media Relations
303-497-8604, anatta@ucar.edu
Tom Bettge,
NCAR Scientific Computing Division
303-497-1371, bettge@ucar.edu
NCAR is operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) under the primary sponsorship of the National Science Foundation.
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NCAR is managed
by UCAR and sponsored by the National Science Foundation |