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University of Florida Pioneers Grid Computing and High-Speed Networking With Cisco High Performance Computing Solutions
High Performance Computing Center Supports Multidisciplinary Teams and Collaborative Research
| Source: Cisco Systems
SAN JOSE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 14, 2006 -- Cisco® (NASDAQ : CSCO ) today announced that
the University of Florida High Performance Computing Center (HPCC)
successfully deployed solutions from Cisco to support its campus-wide grid
computing. The HPCC and campus grid serve six major areas of research:
high-energy physics, chemical physics and materials science, coastal and
estuarine modeling, medical physics, computational biology, and computer
science and engineering.
The Cisco technologies have enabled the University to combine its next
generation computing grid with high-speed networking to produce a 100-fold
increase in campus compute power and network throughput. Technologies
included in the solution are Cisco SFS 7000 and 7008 InfiniBand Server
Switches, SFS 3012 Multifabric Server Gateway, Catalyst 6500 Series
Switches, MDS 9000 Storage Fabric Switches, and 7600 Series Routers.
Today, complex science and engineering simulations can easily grow into
hundreds of Terabytes or even Petabytes of data. For example, one
University of Florida project involves the study of Alzheimer's, Mad Cow
Disease, and other diseases that result from misfolded proteins. A single
protein-folding simulation used to take more than a year to complete, but
can now be accomplished in less than ten weeks. Combined with high-speed
access to national computing resources across the Florida LambdaRail and
the National LambdaRail, the University's on-campus grids enable it to
tackle problems using enormous data sets, and also share the data among
collaborative teams applying multiple viewpoints and parallel approaches.
"By bringing together our experts in HPC and data management with Cisco's
best networking architects and engineers, we have accomplished something
extraordinary and worth boasting about," said Erik Deumens, director of the
HPC Center at the University of Florida. "Our on-campus capabilities have
been increased by a couple orders of magnitude, and our collaborative
findings will help improve future generations of commercially available
solutions."
One important component of the HPCC computing grid is its server cluster,
which delivers 1.4 Gigabytes per second of processor-to-storage throughput
today, with upcoming enhancements expected to raise it to 2.5 Gigabytes per
second. This exceptional performance was achieved by the joint
University-Cisco team, allowing a parallel file system to be deployed
across an InfiniBand fabric of unprecedented scale and achieving
performance that is near 10 Gigabits per second Infiniband wire rate.
In addition, the University of Florida HPCC and Cisco are collaborating to
investigate new solutions for high performance computing environments,
including research on server fabric interconnections, high-speed
cluster-to-cluster connections and links to Florida LambdaRail (FLR) and
National LambdaRail (NLR). The University's campus grid also provides a
platform for researchers to enhance their participation in the Open Science
Grid (OSG). OSG members collectively deploy and own the shared
infrastructure, which spans more than 40 sites in the United States, South
America, and Asia. High-speed networks will eventually link more than
20,000 processors to provide a collaborative platform for multiple
sciences. The University of Florida, and Cisco as its partner, can use the
OSG for both production and research projects in the sciences to test new
grid technologies.
"Our Campus Grid computing and networking initiatives directly benefit the
university as a whole by enriching our research programs, demonstrating our
leadership in HPC, and improving our ability to compete for funding and
top researchers," said Marc Hoit, CIO for the University of Florida.
"Together with Cisco, we have learned how to design and build better
solutions."
About the University of Florida
UF is a major, public, comprehensive, land-grant, research university. The
state's largest and most comprehensive university, Florida is among the
nation's most academically diverse public universities. Florida has a long
history of established programs in international education, research and
service. It is one of only 17 public, land-grant universities that belongs
to the Association of American Universities.
About Cisco Systems
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how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco
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or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United
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document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word
partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any
other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.