Dell supercomputer unveiled at QLD Uni

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 02 March 2005 18:00

Your IT - Entertainment

Dell has deployed a 72 processor supercomputer at the University of Queensland's ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics (ACQAO) research facility to power its research into "ultra-cold atoms".

The 36 dual-processor Dell PowerEdge(tm) server cluster, running on
Intel(r) Xeon(tm) EMT 64 processors, has been deployed with the Linux
operating system for just under $250,000.

The ACQAO is a collaboration of scientists from Australian National
University, University of Queensland and Melbourne's Swinburne
University of Technology.  It has deployed the clustered computing
resource in its Queensland University facility to drive highly complex
quantum physics calculations relating to Bose-Einstein condensates and
ultra cold quantum gases.

Bose-Einstein condensates are a state of matter predicted by Einstein in the 1920s, but not observed until 1995 - a feat that was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001.  The condensates form when atomic gases are cooled to freezing temperatures a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero, and must be described using the equations of quantum mechanics.

The research is ground-breaking and promises the development of next
generation technology for small, highly accurate devices for precision
measurement and nano-technology.  It is being conducted in consultation with Nobel Laureate Professor Bill Phillips from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, US, and other prominent researchers from around the world.  The highly complex nature of the research requires high performance computing power.

"What we are doing is quite simply the hardest calculations in physics," said Professor Peter Drummond, the UQ node Director of ACQAO.  "We need phenomenally high-end computing power but we didn't have a high-end IT budget. Dell's low-cost computing solution meant it was the only vendor able to deliver the sort of performance we wanted at a price we could afford."

The cluster configuration is well-adapted to the computations for which it will be used.  The calculations can easily be divided among the processors, and running all 36 servers will lead to a huge speed up that will rapidly advance the research.  In addition, because they are industry standards Intel servers, the Dell PowerEdge 1425 servers are easily scaled-up to larger configurations.  This is equally important given the unpredictable nature of the project and the strong possibility that additional computing resources will be needed in the future.

"The world is moving away from proprietary systems that take fortunes to buy and years to deploy," said Philip Cronin, general manager Intel Australia and New Zealand.