The new Dell PowerEdge 1850 server cluster will have a peak speed 10 times that of the current fastest platform at PDC, available for research at Swedish academic institutions on behalf of the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), and six times the memory capacity. The new cluster will serve both the Swedish academic research community at large, and a Theoretical Biochemistry group lead by Professor Per Siegbahn at Stockholm University and Professor Hans Agren at KTH. The new cluster was made possible by combining equipment funding for the Theoretical Biochemistry group from the KA Wallenberg Foundation with equipment funds from SNIC.

The new cluster will be the largest SNIC computing resource and will support complex calculations and analysis across the full range of academic research requiring large-scale computational resources for significant advances.

The robust solution comprises 442 server nodes, each equipped with a PowerEdge 1850 server with two 3.4 GHz Intel Xeon processors EM64T and 8 GB of memory. The cluster has a theoretical peak performance of 6 trillion floating point operations per second (TFLOPs). The nodes are interconnected with Mellanox InfiniBand technology and Scali's MPI using Intel's PCI Express bus.

"This new resource continues KTH's tradition of applying leading edge computing technology to innovative research in science and engineering for the benefit of industry and society at large", stated KTH President, Anders Flodstrom. "Computational Science and Engineering are of highest priority at KTH and I am very pleased that we now will have one of the most powerful computers in Europe for academic research and have great confidence that substantial progress will be made", he continued.

The high-performance and exceptional value of the solution presented by Dell, Intel Corporation, Mellanox and Scali were key factors in PDC's decision to select Dell for the system solution. Dr. Lennart Johnsson, Director, PDC, stated: "The Dell PowerEdge servers with PCI Express, Mellanox InfiniBand technology and Scali's MPI gives us unparalleled computing power for our budget. It was a very compelling solution. With the chosen technology we are very pleased to be able to provide a large-scale computing resource to Swedish academic users comparable with what is available to researchers in other European countries."

Dr. Johnsson continued: "Both Dell and Intel have excellent reputations for quality products and their ability to work well together. It was also essential for our decision that Dell choose to work with leading vendors of cluster interconnection hardware and software technology, Mellanox and Scali, and took on the responsibility of system integrator."

"This new resource will make it possible for us to make a serious attack on some outstanding problems in computational biochemistry. We can research key areas such as the mechanisms for activation of molecular oxygen in the body and the reverse process of oxygen formation in green plants," say Professors Per Siegbahn and Hans ˆ…gren.

Steve Smith, HPC Business Manager, Dell Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), says: "Dell’¤™s standards-based servers easily take advantage of new technologies at an affordable price point and strong relationships with best of breed strategic partners deliver a complete HPCC solution for our customers. Dell is the single point of contact on this project and has worked to provide the flexibility required to meet the customer’¤™s exact needs."

Tom Garrision, Enterprise Marketing, Intel EMEA, adds: "The Intel¬Æ Xeon’„¢ processors in place provide a high-performance solution for developers, offering premium memory capacity and support. These are ideally suited to KTH’¤™s exact requirements and supply the computing power the university needs to succeed in developing groundbreaking research activities."