Increasing Standardization and Democratization to Drive Next Wave Of Supercomputing

Austin, Texas

* Dell-powered Hyperion cluster at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory aims to be first non-proprietary petascale supercomputer
* The Texas Advanced Computing Center’s ‘Stallion’ visualization cluster reaches 307 million pixels – now the highest resolution tiled display for open science in the world

The next era of supercomputing will be marked by increasing standardization and democratization of high-performance computing (HPC) technologies, accelerating the pace at which we are able to address the world’s most serious issues, Dell CEO and Chairman Michael Dell told attendees at the SC08 conference today.

A live web cast, transcript, slides and other materials will be available at Dell.com/SC08.

The News:

* Dell, Intel and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announced the availability of LLNL’s Hyperion hyperscale computing environment.
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Advanced Simulation and Computing Program at LLNL expects Hyperion, created with a consortium of eight additional HPC industry leaders, to speed the development and reduce the cost of powerful HPC clusters vital to U.S. Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration missions, from national and homeland security to energy, climate change, and other global challenges. Hyperion will also enhance U.S. competitiveness in HPC.
* The Texas Advanced Computing Center at The University of Texas at Austin announced that Dell is powering Stallion, the world’s highest resolution tiled display for open science.
The new ACES Visualization Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin will aid researchers in data-intensive fields by transforming information into logical, visual formats from which scientists can identify patterns, anomalies and relationships en route to critical discoveries. This capability is essential to efforts ranging from tracking hurricanes to studying diseases to understanding the origins of the universe.

Quotes:

Michael Dell – Chairman and CEO, Dell

* We’re proud to power Hyperion, the world’s largest standards-based test bed dedicated to enhancing the productivity of researchers worldwide.
* The acceleration of open, standards-based high-performance computing will continue – driven by Dell, our partners and customers.

Dr. Mark Seager, Head of Advanced Computing Technology, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

* Hyperion enables the development and scaling of critical Linux cluster technology that will make Linux clusters more affordable and much easier to use.
* The Hyperion SAN test bed will enable us to attack problems associated with deploying petascale simulations environments.
* This will allow us to apply more powerful computational resources to the broader set of Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration missions we support, from national and homeland security to climate change and finding new energy sources.

Kelly Gaither, Associate Director for Data and Information Analysis, Texas Advanced Computing Center, the University of Texas

* Stallion will deliver unmatched capabilities in the Visualization Lab, helping scientists across many key disciplines.
* The clarity we are able to provide on the visualization wall will enable new breakthroughs in important research. We are currently working with scientists in disciplines ranging from disease to climate change.

Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president, Intel, and Digital Enterprise Group general manager

* We are delighted that LLNL has selected Intel Xeon processors, including our next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture based CPUs, as the foundation for their HPC computing engine.
* We are excited that this will be the world’s first 1000-node supercomputer to be deployed using Intel’s Cluster Ready specification, processes, and tools.

About Dell

Twenty-four of the world’s top supercomputers run on Dell.