MEGWARE Cluster Increases Computing Power at the University of Bayreuth

Chemnitz, Germany  1 February 2013— MEGWARE, the German specialist in the field of supercomputing, has won a contract from the University of Bayreuth in Germany for the production and supply of a new supercomputer. Intensive computer applications will run using the Linux Cluster which will be delivered in Spring 2013. It is called `btrzx3´.

1.25 million euros are available for the HPC system which is based on AMD processors of type AMD Opteron 6348. 9,696 processor cores are built into 402 nodes which are linked with a fast QDR Infiniband network. Several of MEGWARE’s own developments will also be supplied. The specifically developed MEGWARE ClustWare will be installed to enable easy administration of the cluster and it will be fitted with extensive monitoring functions. The tried and tested MEGWARE ClustSafe will be used for power distribution.

Eight companies submitted tenders. “Benchmarks were used to determine the computing power. We selected typical calculations from research fields which will run on the new high performance computer in the future,” explained Dr Andreas Grandel, Head of the IT Service Centre at the University of Bayreuth. To give further clarification, he said “MEGWARE achieved the best result and were able to balance price and performance in a convincing way.”

Special intensive computer tasks will be incorporated into the new system. Experts from specialist fields like biochemistry, physics and material sciences will use the resources. Macromolecules from a natural source will be investigated at the Research Centre for Bio-Macromolecules. At the hub will also be the interaction of these with ligands, effectors and cofactors as well as the interaction with synthetic macromolecules. Researchers in theoretical physics on the other hand will work with the help of the HPC system on the acquisition of new knowledge in the field of the non-linear dynamics of hot plasma. The HPC system will also be used in the modelling and numerical processing of problems which deal with the development of micro-structures in complicated materials.

“In this project, praxis relevant application benchmarks were of prime importance. After being tested on various CPU architectures and system configurations, it was shown that the AMD Opteron processors offered the best price-performance ratio,” said MEGWARE HPC engineer Nico Mittenzwey, giving more background about the decision.

MEGWARE had already supplied two HPC systems to the Bavarian University in 2005 and 2009, which in the meantime had been extended several times. “We are delighted that the University of Bayreuth has decided in our favor again. The new high performance computer will be put into operation in March 2013 alongside the existing MEGWARE cluster so that the increased demand for computing resources can be met,” explained Jana Mitschke, MEGWARE Marketing Manager. With its maximum performance of 108.6 teraflop/s, the system could even get into the coming TOP500 list.

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