Compaq clusters Alphas in Wuppertal, Germany

 Wuppertal 02 Mar 00 Compaq goes back to its "Digital" roots and now approaches successfully the scientific community. In Wuppertal (Germany), at the Bergische University - Highschool, Compaq got a contract to install a 128 node Alpha cluster, consisting of 128 DS10 workstations with a 600 MHz Alpha processor. They are connected with a Myrinet system area network. In the first step 64 processors, 466 MHz, have been powered in November 1999 and are running Linux.

In an opening ceremony, end of January, the interdisciplinary Institute for Applied Informatics (IAI) presented the parallel high-performance cluster named ALiCE based on Compaq workstations DS10. IAI operates the computer lab for parallel algorithms and stochastic simulations (COMPASS). They started in 1990 with a parallel computer from Thinking Machines, CM2. The cluster replaces the Thinking Machines CM-5/32 (32 SPARC nodes and 128 vector processors), which was installed in 1992 and had a Linpack-performance of 1.9 GFlop/s - rank 142 in the TOP500 list from June 1993.

In a first step 64 Alpha processors with a clock rate of 466 MHz are operating since November 1999. They system has a peak performance of nearly 60 GFlop/s. In April the whole computer with 128 DS10 workstations haveing 600 MHz Alpha processors will be delivered. Thus the cluster will have a peak performance of 154 GFlop/s, the Linpack performance can be expected as 75 GFlop/s. The distributed memory aggregates to 16 GB, more than 1 TB disc space is available.

The off-the-shelf Compaq DS10 workstations are connected via a high-speed system area network (SAN). Wuppertal chose the Myrinet solution from Myricom instead the Quadrics network, used in the French Atomic Energy Commission cluster of 5 TFlop/s. Myrinet's peak throughput is 1.28 Gbit/s (full duplex). Measurements showed a rate of 1.2 GBit/s. The parallel application programs use this SAN. Additionally three more networks connect the nodes. A fast Ethernet is used for the internal communication via TCP/IP, an other fast Ethernet for the communication of ALiCE in the Internet and a serial network for the central management of all compute nodes.

The operating system is Linux. IAI installed the Suse Linux, version 6.3. As Compaq ported compilers to Linux, C and Fortran compilers with all the optimisation features of Tru64 Unix are available. As the source code of the Myricom software is open, the center can develop an own communication library. Compaq installs the whole system and is responsible for the maintenance.

The cluster is used for basic research in theoretical physics, electrical engineering, mathematics and computer science. Furtheron researchers from othe universities can access the machine.

Web site: www.theorie.physik.uniwuppertal.de/Computerlabor

 

Uwe Harms

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