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Supercomputer
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Presented by: guided by: ----------------------------------------------------------------Shreya shukla Ayesha sheikh

Hasmukh goswami college of engg.

Supercomputers
Overview Supercomputers can be defined as the most advanced and powerful computers, or array of computers, in existence at the time of their construction. Supercomputers are used to solve problems that are too complex or too massive for standard computers, like calculating how individual molecules move in a tornado, or forecasting detailed weather patterns. Some supercomputers are single computers consisting of multiple processors; others are clusters of computers that work together. History Supercomputers were first developed in the early 1970s when Seymour Cray introduced the Cray 1 supercomputer. Because microprocessors were not yet available, the processor consisted of individual integrated circuits. Successive generations of supercomputers were developed by Cray and became more powerful with each version. Other companies like IBM, NEC, Texas Instruments and Unisys began to design and manufacture more powerful and faster computers after the introduction of the Cray 1. You can read more about Seymour Cray and other leading figures in supercomputer technology at www.computerhalloffame.org/. The history of supercomputers can be viewed in detail at this Web page. Visit the Digital Century Web site to find a general overview of the history of the development of computers. Today's fastest supercomputers include IBM's Blue Gene and ASCI Purple, SCC's Beowulf, and Cray's SV2. These supercomputers are usually designed to carry out specific tasks. For example, IBM's ASCI Purple is a $250 million supercomputer built for the Department of Energy (DOE). This computer, with a peak speed of 467 teraflops, is used to simulate aging and the operation of nuclear weapons. Learn all about this project by linking to this article. Future supercomputer designs might incorporate the use of entirely new technologies of circuit miniaturization that could include new storage devices and data transfer systems. Scientists at UCLA are currently working on computer processor and circuit designs involving a series of molecules that behave like transistors. By incorporating this technology, new designs might include processors 10,000 times smaller, yet much more powerful than any current models. A comprehensive article about this research can be found at www.applesforhealth.com/supercomp1.html. Processing Speeds Supercomputer computational power is rated in FLOPS

(Floating Point Operations Per Second). The first commercially available supercomputers reached speeds of 10 to 100 million FLOPS. The next generation of supercomputers (some of which are presently in the early stages of development) is predicted to break the petaflop level. This would represent computing power more than 1,000 times faster than a teraflop machine. To put these processing speeds in perspective, a relatively old supercomputer such as the Cray C90 (built in the mid to late 1990s) has a processing speed of only 8 gigaflops. It can solve a problem, which takes a personal computer a few hours, in .002 seconds! The site www.top500.org/ is dedicated to providing information about the current 500 sites with the fastest supercomputers. Both the list and the content at this site is updated regularly, providing those interested with a wealth of information about the developments in supercomputing technology. Supercomputer Architecture Supercomputer design varies from model to model. Generally, there are vector computers and parallel computers. Detailed information about both kinds of architecture can be found at www.sdsc.edu/discovery/lo/sc.htm. Vector computers use a very fast data pipeline to move data from components and memory in the computer to a central processor. Parallel computers use multiple processors, each with their own memory banks, to 'split up' data intensive tasks. A good analogy to contrast vector and parallel computers is that a vector computer could be represented as a single person solving a series of 20 math problems in consecutive order; while a parallel computer could be represented as 20 people, each solving one math problem in the series. Even if the single person (vector) were a master mathematician, 20 people would be able to finish the series much quicker. Other major differences between vector and parallel processors include how data is handled and how each machine allocates memory. A vector machine is usually a single super-fast processor with all the computer's memory allocated to its operation. A parallel machine has multiple processors, each with its own memory. Vector machines are easier to program, while parallel machines, with data from multiple processors (in some cases greater than 10,000 processors), can be tricky to orchestrate. To continue the analogy, 20 people working together (parallel) could have trouble with communication of data between them, whereas a single person (vector) would entirely avoid these communication complexities. Recently, parallel vector computers have been developed to take advantage of both designs. For more information about this design, visit this Netlib.org page. Uses of Supercomputers Supercomputers are called upon to perform the most computeintensive tasks of modern times. As supercomputers have developed in the last 30 years, so have the tasks they typically perform. Modeling of real world complex systems such as fluid dynamics, weather patterns, seismic activity prediction, and nuclear explosion dynamics represent the most modern adaptations of supercomputers. Other tasks include human genome sequencing, credit card transaction processing, and the design and testing of modern aircraft. Manufacturers Although there are numerous companies that manufacture supercomputers, information about purchasing one is not always easy to find on the Internet. The price tag for a custom-built supercomputer can range anywhere from about $500,000 for a beowulf system, up to millions of dollars for the newest and fastest

supercomputers. Cray provides an informative Web site (www.cray.com/) with product descriptions, photos, company information, and an index of current developments. Scyld Computing Corporation (SCC) provides a Web site (www.scyld.com/) with detailed information about their Beowulf Operating System and the computers developed to allow multiple systems to operate under one platform. IBM has produced, and continues to produce, some of the most cutting-edge supercomputer technology. For information about IBM supercomputers visit www.ibm.com/. Their Blue Gene supercomputer, being constructed in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Labs, is expected to run 15 times faster (at 200 teraflops) than their current supercomputers. Read all about this project by visiting this link. IBM is also currently working on what they call a "self-aware" supercomputer, named "Blue Sky", for The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. The Blue Sky will be used to work on colossal computing problems such as weather prediction. Additionally, this supercomputer can self-repair, requiring no human intervention. Read all about Blue Sky in the article found here. Intel has developed a line of supercomputers known as Intel TFLOPS. Supercomputers that use thousands of Pentium Pro processors in a parallel configuration to meet the supercomputing demands of their customers. Information about Intel supercomputers can be found at Intel's Web site (www.intel.com) or by reading this article.

What is a Supercomputer?
A supercomputer is defined simply as the most powerful class of computers at any point in time. Supercomputers are used to solve large and complex problems that are insurmountable by smaller, less powerful computers. Since the pioneering Cray-1 system arrived in 1976, supercomputers have made a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge and the quality of human life. Problems of major economic, scientific and strategic importance typically are addressed by supercomputers years before becoming tractable on less-capable systems. In conjunction with some of the world's most creative scientific and engineering minds, these formidable tools already have made automobiles safer and more fuelefficient; located new deposits of oil and gas; saved lives and property by predicting severe storms; created new materials and life-saving drugs; powered advances in electronics and visualization; safeguarded national security; and unraveled mysteries ranging from protein-folding mechanisms to the shape of the universe. Capable supercomputers are in short supply. Today's supercomputer market is replete with "commodity clusters," products assembled from collections of servers or PCs. Clusters are adept at tackling small problems and large problems lacking complexity, but are inefficient at the most demanding, consequential challenges - especially those of industry. Climate research algorithms, for example, are unable to achieve high levels of performance on these computers. The primary "design points" for today's clusters are server and PC markets, not supercomputing. Christopher Lazou, a high-performance computing consultant, explains, "Using tens of thousands of commodity chips may provide the capacity (peak flop rates) but not the capability, because of lack of memory bandwidth to a very large shared memory." Cray's product portfolio addresses this issue with high-bandwidth offerings. High-end Supercomputers For important classes of applications, there is no substitute for supercomputers specifically designed not only for performance, but also high-bandwidth and low latency. Historically, this has been accomplished through vector architectures and more recently, multi-threaded architectures. These specialized supercomputers are built to meet the most challenging computing problems in the world. Today, new technology and innovation at Cray Inc. has allowed for a new class of supercomputers that combines the performance characteristics of vector supercomputers with the scalability of commodity clusters to achieve both highefficiency and extreme performance in a scalable system architecture. These characteristics are embodied in the recently announced Cray X1 system. The Future of Supercomputing

Applications promising future competitive and scientific advantage create an insatiable demand for more supercomputer power - 10 to 1,000 times greater than anything available today, according to users. Automotive companies are targeting increased passenger cabin comfort, improved safety and handling. Aerospace firms envision more efficient planes and space vehicles. The petroleum industry wants to "see" subsurface phenomena in greater detail. Urban planners hope to ease traffic congestion. Integrated digital imaging and virtual surgery - including simulated sense of touch - are high on the wish list in medicine. The sequencing of the human genome promises to open an era of burgeoning research and commercial enterprise in the life sciences. As the demand for supercomputing power increases and the market expands, Cray's focus remains on providing superior real-world performance. Today's "theoretical peak performance" and benchmark tests are evolving to match the requirements of science and industry, and Cray supercomputing systems will provide the tools they need to solve their most complex computational problems

American Super Computer released to Russia a business adventure of ROY International Consultancy, Inc.!

Posted By: gmax Date: 10/06/00 16:48 Summary:BioInform: IBM Designs Architecture for Blue Gene Supercomputer, Collaborates with Academia ``Since IBM's announcement last year that it would spend $100 million to build a supercomputer called Blue Gene for protein folding research, it has begun collaborating with scientists at Indiana University, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania on some of the mathematical techniques and software needed for the system. ``The company has also decided to use a cellular architecture for the machine, where it will use simple pieces and replicate them on a large scale. Protein folding research requires advances in computational power and molecular dynamics techniques - the mathematical method for calculating the movement of atoms in the formation of proteins, said Joe Jasinski, IBM's newly appointed senior manager of Blue Gene and the computational biology center. ```The first problem that we are attacking with Blue Gene is to understand at the atomic level the detailed dynamics, the motions involved in protein folding,' Jasinski said. `That's a very computationally intensive problem which requires at least a petaflop computer and probably something bigger.' ``Most of the system software as well as the routines that will drive the applications are being developed by IBM's computational biology group, which was formed in 1992 and now numbers about 40 scientists and engineers.'' M a y 1 8 , 2 0 0

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n d w e c a n c o m p e t e a t t h e g l o b a l m a r k e t " . " T h e n e w

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e r i a n E a p e n s a i d , " W i t h t h e h i g h e s t o f s e c u r i t y s

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v e r y m o m e n t w a s t e n s e d u e t o d a n g e r o f s e c u r i t y r

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p m e n t . O n e o f o u r e m p l o y e e s f r o m M o s c o w , V i c t o r , t r

a v e l e d w i t h t h e f r e i g h t f o r w a r d e r s a n d s e c u r i t y

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p o r t t o t h e d e s t i n a t i o n . A b o u t 4 A M o n D e c e m b e r 2 5

, C h r i s t m a s d a y m o r n i n g , I g o t t h e f i n a l c a l l f o r t h a

t d a y f r o m V i c t o r , a s k i n g m e t o t a k e r e s t a s t h e

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S u p e r C o m p u t e r , b y o p e n i n g a b o t t l e o f V o d k a . " BiO News

DIFFERENT SUPER COMPUTER

Canada's Fastest Computer Simulates Galaxies In Collision
Shortened sequence of images showing the detailed interaction of two galaxies colliding
by Nicolle Wahl Toronto - Jul 25, 2003

A $900,000 supercomputer at the University of Toronto -- the fastest computer in Canada -- is heating up astrophysics research in this country and burning its way up the list of the world's fastest computers. The new computer, part of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), was ranked as the fastest computer in Canada and the 39th fastest in the world in the latest list from www.top500.org, compiled by the Universities of Mannheim and Tennessee and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "An essential element of modern astrophysics is the ability to carry out largescale simulations of the cosmos, to complement the amazing observations being undertaken," said Professor Peter Martin, chair of astronomy and astrophysics and a CITA investigator. "With the simulations possible on this computer, we have in effect a laboratory where we can test our understanding of astronomical phenomena ranging from the development of structure in the universe over 14 billion years to the development of new planets in star-forming systems today." When the computer, created by the HPC division of Mynix Technology of Montreal (now a part of Ciara Technologies), starts its calculations, the 512 individual central processing units can heat up to 65 C, requiring extra ventilation and air-conditioning to keep the unit functioning. But with that heat comes the capability of performing more than one trillion calculations per second, opening the door to more complex and comprehensive simulations of the universe. It is the only Canadian machine to break the Teraflop barrier -- one trillion calculations per second -- and it's the fastest computer in the world devoted to a wide spectrum of astrophysics research. "This new computer lets us solve a variety of problems with better resolution than can be achieved with any other supercomputer in Canada," said Chris

Loken, CITA's computing facility manager. "Astrophysics is a science that needs a lot of computer horsepower and memory and that's what this machine can provide. The simulations are also enabled by in-house development of sophisticated parallel numerical codes that fully exploit the computer's capabilities." The machine, nicknamed McKenzie (after the McKenzie Brothers comedy sketch on SCTV), with 268 gigabytes of memory and 40 terabytes of disk space, consists of two master nodes (Bob and Doug), 256 compute nodes, and eight development nodes. All of these are networked together using a novel gigabit networking scheme that was developed and implemented at CITA. Essentially, the two gigabit Ethernet ports on each node are used to create a "mesh" that connects every machine directly to another machine and to one of 17 inexpensive gigabit switches. It took four people about two days and two kilometres of cable to connect this network. The unique CITA design drives down the networking cost in the computer by at least a factor of five and the innovative system has attracted industry attention. Professor John Dubinski has used the new computer to examine both the formation of cosmological structure and the collisions of galaxies by simulating the gravitational interaction of hundreds of millions of particles representing stars and the mysterious dark matter. The anticipated collision of the Milky Way Galaxy with our neighbouring Andromeda galaxy -- an event predicted to take place in three billion years time -- has been modeled at unprecedented resolution. New simulations on the formation of supermassive black holes, again with the highest resolution to date, have been carried out by his colleagues Professors Ue-Li Pen and Chris Matzner. They have already uncovered clues which may explain the mystery of why the black hole at the center of our galaxy is so much fainter than had been expected theoretically. The team has even grander plans for the future. "In astrophysics at the University of Toronto we have continually exploited the latest computing technology to meet our requirements, always within a modest budget," Martin said. "This is a highly competitive science and to maintain our lead we are planning a computer some ten times more powerful."

China To Build World's Most Powerful Computer

China's future science and defence needs will require ever more powerful high performance computer systems.

Beijing (Xinhua) Jul 29, 2003

The Downing Information Industry Co., Ltd., a major Chinese manufacturer of high-performance computers, is to build the world's most powerful computer, capable of performing 10 trillion calculations per second. Scheduled to be completed by March next year, the super computer marks China's first step in the development of a cluster computer system, which has the highest calculation speed in the world, according to a source with the company. Previously, the Downing Information Industry Co., Ltd. had successfully developed a super computer, capable of performing 4 trillion calculations per second. Code-named "Shuguang4000A", the planned super computer covers an area equal to a quarter of a football field, and it will use processors developed by AMD, a United States computer chip maker. AMD and the Chinese company have signed a cooperation agreementto develop the planned super computer of China. The fastest existing cluster computer system in the world is capable of calculating at a speed of 7.6 trillion bytes per second.

First Super Computer Developed in China

China's first super computer which is capable of making 1.027 trillion calculations per second showed up in Zhongguancun, known as a "Silicon Valley" in the Chinese capital Beijing, Thursday. The computer, developed by the Legend Group Corp., China's leading computer manufacturer, boasts the same operation speed as the 24th fastest computer in the world's top 500 super computers. The leading 23 super computers were developed by Japan and the United States respectively. Legend president Yang Yuanqing said the computer will be installed at the mathematics and system science research institute affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in early September. It will be used in calculating hydromechanics, disposing petroleum and earth quake materials, climatic mode calculation, materials science calculation, DNA and protein calculation. Yang said it only takes the computer two minutes to complete the simulation of global climatic changes in one day, compared with 20 hours by other large computers. Computers with super calculation speed used to be the tool of small number of scientists in labs in the past, but now they are widely used in economic and social fields, even in filmmaking. A computer, which is capable of making 85.1 trillion calculations per second, the highest calculation speed in the world, has been recently developed in Japan.

Shell to use Linux supercomputer for oil quest