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| Supercharging a supercomputer |
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| [Bulletin No. 10, May 2009] |
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| Tokyo Tech's TSUBAME computer cluster is faster
than ever
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| Tokyo Tech's continually evolving TSUBAME supercomputer
cluster is a perennial performance leader among the world's
supercomputers. And a recent upgrade with graphics processing
units (GPUs) has raised the system's performance further.
Tokyo Tech has employed 170 Nvidia Tesla S1070 1U systems
to increase TSUBAME's theoretical peak computing speed to
a mind-boggling 170 teraflops. That has helped maintain the
system's standing at the high end of the much-watched Top500
Supercomputers ranking. |
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The upgrade, carried out in November 2008, optimizes
the first-generation TSUBAME, which Tokyo Tech installed
in 2006. It is in step with Tokyo Tech's preparations to
design and install a brand-new version of the supercomputer,
TSUBAME 2.0, in 2010.
"We work constantly to position TSUBAME in the
vanguard of computing platforms," explains Tokyo
Tech's Satoshi Matsuoka (photo), who heads the
TSUBAME project. "Our system had reached a juncture
where GPUs were the best technology for achieving the
next leap in performance.
"Modern GPUs, despite their name, are actually
massively parallel processors and accommodate general-purpose
computing. Deploying them was therefore a more-effective
solution for our needs than just adding conventional
CPUs. Nvidia's Tesla GPUs have delivered unprecedented
speedups—more than a hundredfold with some applications.
That means huge gains in computing power for our scientists
and engineers. And we have achieved those gains at low
cost, at low power consumption, and in minimal space.
"We completed the entire upgrade for the whole
machine in merely two weeks, and TSUBAME remained live
throughout. The fast-turnaround upgrade has raised TSUBAME's
measured LINPACK performance to 77.48 teraflops. That
is double the system's original performance, two and
a half years ago. What has amazed me is that there is
little visible evidence of the upgrade. The Teslas are
barely noticeable because their footprint is extremely
small, compared with the rest of TSUBAME."
Matsuoka is referring to LINPACK benchmarks used by
Top500, a joint undertaking by the University of Mannheim,
the University of Tennessee, and the National Energy
Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center at Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory. Top500 ranks the world's
500 fastest supercomputers twice annually on the basis
of those benchmarks. In the November 2008 results, TSUBAME
overtook the University of Tsukuba's machine, which had
overtaken TSUBAME earlier in the year, to achieve the
No. 2 spot among Japanese supercomputers. Matsuoka's
team is working feverishly to reclaim the top spot in
Japan from a system at the University of Tokyo in the
June 2009 rankings. |
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| This graphic, which comprises
19.7 billion polygons, is a visualization of turbulent flow,
such as occurs behind a glider's wing. TSUBAME's massive
processing capacity has allowed for elucidating previously
undetectable micromotion inside air currents. The supercomputer
supports research in numerous fields, including geophysics,
chemistry, material sciences, mechanical engineering, meteorology,
and bioinformatics. |
| Enlarge
Image |
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| "I think of TSUBAME more
as an information system than as a computer. It integrates
diverse technologies to provide optimal support for users." |
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Supercomputing for everyone
"We're proud to be a
world leader in computing performance," acknowledges
Matsuoka. "But we're even more proud of TSUBAME for
another reason. This system is a huge step toward our goal
of making supercomputing available to nonspecialist users.
"TSUBAME's user population has grown annually and now
consists of more than 1,500 users. Any of the more than 10,000
members of the Tokyo Tech community, including undergraduate
students, can secure user accounts. That is in contrast with
the common pattern among supercomputer systems, which tend
to be available to just a few specialists. We also have hundreds
of users outside Tokyo Tech, including users in industry.
The addition of GPUs to TSUBAME will make supercomputing
available to a growing range of technologies. Their massively
parallel processing is likely to become a mainstream computer
resource."
Matsuoka, a professor in Tokyo Tech's Global Scientific
Information and Computing Center, earned his doctorate in
computer science from the University of Tokyo in 1993. A
pioneer in grid computing and cluster computing in Japan,
he has been at Tokyo Tech since 1996. Recognition for his
work has included the 2005 JSPS Prize from the Japan Society
for the Promotion of Science, presented by Prince Akishinonomiya.
Matsuoka served for five years as a subleader of Japan's
National Research Grid Initiative (NAREGI) for creating middleware
for next-generation e-science infrastructure, and he is the
technical papers chair for Association for Computing Machinery/IEEE
(ACM/IEEE) Supercomputing 2009. ACM/IEEE Supercomputing,
the world's preeminent supercomputing conference, draws more
than 10,000 participants from around the world each year,
and it is the venue for the autumn announcement of the Top500
rankings.
TSUBAME's unprecedented accessibility to researchers in
diverse fields is partly attributable to the system's PC-based
architecture. It is also a tribute to Matsuoka's commitment
to what he calls "supercomputing for everyone." That
commitment has yielded results through extensive research
by Matsuoka and his team, through evangelical outreach to
potential users inside and outside Tokyo Tech, and through
conscientious orientation and support.
Matsuoka and his team have achieved two-tier accessibility:
ready access for nonspecialist users on their PCs, and direct
access to supercomputing resources. Users who proceed from
PC access to direct access as they become proficient enjoy
a seamless usage and programming environment for the same
set of applications. |
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| This snapshot image shows the
Rayleigh-Taylor instability of the interface between a
heavier fluid (upper portion) and a lighter fluid
(lower portion). The GPUs employed in the TSUBAME
upgrade have allowed for computing that instability 62
times faster than was possible with conventional CPUs.
A grasp of Rayleigh-Taylor instability is especially important
in astrophysics, as in regard to the Supernova 1987A explosion,
and in other fields, such as inertial confinement fusion
driven by lasers. |
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| Shown here is a TSUBAME-generated
image of the geomagnetic field and axial-vorticity distribution
in the earth's core. |
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