Supercomputer Inauguration Colloquium at Research Centre Karlsruhe

The inauguration took place because of the extension of the parallel vector computer VPP5000 and the cluster hpcLine from Fujitsu Siemens Computers (FSC). The vector computer VPP5000 got four more processors - the installation was finished on April 1st - and now has 8 processors with 8 GByte memory each and a peak performance of 76.8 GFlop/s. The old VPP300 with 16 processors and 2 GByte each and a total peak performance of 35 GFlop/s will probably run another 7 months. The Intel-based hpcLine cluster from FSC now has 16 TWIN modules with two Pentium II (700 MHz) processors per node (32 processors in total) and uses SuSE Linux 6.4, installed is TotalView 4.1 and VAMPIR 2.5 too.

Additionally a parallel computer IBM RS/6000 SP (now pSeries) with 8 nodes with 8 Power3-processors with 222 MHz and one node with 4 Power3 processors with 375 MHz and a peak performance of 60 GFlop/s is available.

Virtual Computer Centre Karlsruhe

A very specific element in Karlsruhe is the virtual Computer Centre. The University and the Research Centre agreed to form this centre across the institutional boundaries. Thus the researchers in the university have access to the computers in the Research Centre. On the other hand the scientists at the Research Centre can access the IBM SP computer in the University. There they operate the "old" IBM RS/6000 SP with 256 thin and wide nodes with an aggregated peak performance of 105 GFlop/s and 120 GB main memory. The new system, 192 GFlop/s, with 52 nodes consists of 48 WinterHawk-2 thin nodes, an SMP systems, two Power3 processors (375 MHz), a memory of 2 GB, and a processor peak performance of 1.5 GFlop/s. The other 4 nodes are NightHawk-2 high nodes, SMP systems with 8 processors, 8 GB memory and 12 GFlop/s per node. Both machines are integrated in a uniform operation environment.

Summary of the Inauguration Talks

Klaus-Peter Mickel, Head of Information and Communication Techniques Department, reported on the early start of vector supercomputing in 1987 with a VP50, a VP400 in 1991, a VPP300 in 1997 and VPP5000 in 2000 with the extension to 8 processors this year.

Peter Fritz, member of the Board of Directors of Research Centre Karlsruhe (FZK), mentioned that the VPP5000 will be integrated in the Virtual Computer Centre Karlsruhe, which was founded in March 1996. Because of the good experiences with the Linux-Cluster, FSC hpcLine, it will be upgraded to 64 processors in the next weeks. FZK applies for the Regional Computer Centre in CERN's European high-energy physics project. Several PetaByte of measurement data have to be processed and stored. Peter Fritz:"Scientific high-performance computing has a high importance in Karlsruhe."

Professor Wolfgang Rodi, Institute of Hydrodynamics Univ. Karlsruhe, was named as the biggest user, who can fill every machine. He compared direct and Large-Eddy simulation of turbulent flows. After discussing both methods, he presented computing times for the direct method

Reynolds nr.	6600	2000	10000	106
gridpoints N3 2x106	40x106	3x109	1.5x1012
computing time
150 MFlop/s 37 h	740 h	6.5 years	3000 years
1 TFlop/s 20 s	400 s	8.3 h	4000 h

He presented some examples, flow around a cube, 4 processors VPP300 about 1000 CPU-hours/processor, airfoil profile 400 hours on 2 processor VPP5000. He concluded that the direct and Large-Eddy simulation are usable for real-world problems but very expensive.

Dr. Heike Vogel, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, simulated the Ozone propagation in the lower Rhine area, Karlsruhe, Mannheim up to Stuttgart. Such a simulation run needed 12 CPU hours, .4 GB memory and 1.2 GB memory. She analysed the effect, if one distils Toluol an Aromata out of the fuel to reduce the Ozone concentration. The result was minimal, thus it is not worth to pay for this. For example cost the 3% nitric oxyde reduction Germany 1 billion Euro per year. She proposed to use numerical simulation to predict the success of activities before realising them. This helps the politicians to avoid wrong decisions.

Dr. Wolfgang Kouker, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, simulated the Antarctic Ozone hole with supercomputers, Dr. Klaus-Peter Bohnen, the structure and grid dynamics of solid strate physics. Dr. Ulrich Fischer, Institute of Reactor Safety, used the Linux cluster for Monte-Carlo-Applications in the Fusion neutronic. Combustion was the research field of Dr. Alexander Kotchourko, Institute of Nuclear and Energy Technique. He used an MPP for his simulations.