The TACC research community has access to technology that is

ranked among the most powerful in the world. While this is

impressive, what matters most to these scientists is that they are able to

accomplish research that would not be possible without the high

performance resources and services that TACC provides. The ability to

utilize a large number of Dell servers simultaneously enables large scale

numerical simulations - simulations that would be impossible on a single

workstation or small cluster.

Among the many advanced technology resources available to

researchers at TACC are several high-end computing platforms

powered by standards-based technology from leading industry partners,

including Dell. These high-end systems, coupled with advanced network

infrastructure and large scale storage and archival resources, have

helped earn TACC a leadership position in the high performance

computing (HPC) community.

“The Dell clusters provide researchers at UT Austin great capability to

tackle challenging problems by increasing the problem size and

resolution for excellent fidelity, while decreasing the time to solution,”

said Tommy Minyard, manager of TACC’s Advanced Systems Group.

“Researchers across the country are also now using Lonestar for very

large scale science.”

Lonestar supercomputer supports innovative research

The largest and most powerful of TACC’s HPC lineup is the Lonestar cluster. This supercomputer,comprised of 1028 Pentium® 4 Xeon®

processors in 514 Dell™ PowerEdge™ 1750 and 2650 server nodes is, in

theory, capable of completing 6.3 trillion floating point calculations persecond (Teraflops) and can sustain speeds as high as 4.15 Teraflops. Allnodes are connected via a high speed Myrinet® 2000 interconnect forfast node-to-node data transfer and 42 Dell PowerConnect™ GigabitEthernet switches provide the interconnect for network managementand IO traffic. Users of Lonestar have access to over 12 Terabytes of DellPowerVault™ storage. Lonestar runs the Linux® operating system.

With overall average utilization rates approaching 80 percent, Lonestar

supports many data intensive HPC research projects for several

government, higher education and corporate organizations. The cluster

hosts a wide range of scientific applications, spanning multiple

disciplines including climate, weather and ocean modeling, earth

sciences, biomedicine and many branches of engineering.

CHALLENGE

Support computational research at the Texas

Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The

University of Texas at Austin with advanced

technology while continuing to explore more

technology possibilities and uses for

advanced research.

SOLUTION

Deploy the Lonestar high performance computing

cluster comprised of 514 7th generation Dell™

PowerEdge™ servers to support a wide range

of cutting-edge research projects while

exploring the full capabilities of

standards-based technology.

BENEFIT

Advanced computational research is enabled

across a wide range of disciplines. TACC is

recognized as a leading research technology

center. Lonestar ranked 26th when initially

deployed with 300 nodes at the end of 2003,

and now with 514 nodes ranked 95th in the

November 2005 TOP5001 list of the world’s

most powerful supercomputers.

C AS E S T U D Y

University of Texas at Austin: Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)

Large scale simulation research powered by Dell TACC clusters

Cutting-Edge Technology

TACC’s research behind research technology

In addition to providing researchers with the tools required to pursue the latest discoveries, the center conducts research and development to uncover the ful l extent of possibi l i t ies for supercomputing-based research.

Karl Schulz, manager of High Performance Computing at TACC, said,

“Providing supercomputers like Lonestar is crucial, but more needs to

be done to ensure that researchers are effective. TACC is conducting

research and development activities to develop techniques and

software that helps users use systems like Lonestar more easily, and to

get more performance from them.”

One area of exploration for TACC is studying how to further HPC

research using clusters. The team is looking into areas such as

configuration, software availability and performance, and porting

issues. They are also conducting research on the utilization of grids —

technology that enables organizations to share vast amounts of

compute resources and data in a seamless manner.

TACC’s HPC resources are helping the center contribute to national grid

computing efforts. The University of Texas at Austin is one of nine

resource providers for the TeraGrid, the National Science Foundation’s

multiyear effort to build a distributed national cyber infrastructure.

Several of TACC’s high-end computing, storage and visualization

systems are available to the TeraGrid project, all connected to other

TeraGrid sites by a high bandwidth network.

To further explore supercomputing’s capabilities, TACC and Dell have

recently teamed to benchmark high performance computing applications

on standards-based computer hardware. These benchmarks provide a

quantitative understanding of cost-effective, standards-based

supercomputer performance and scalability, particularly in comparison

to proprietary-based RISC systems.

TACC finds a valuable research partner in Dell

Dell offers a wide variety of solutions for research computing at highereducation campuses. To provide universities with the technologyneeded for progressive education initiatives, Dell recently launched theDell Campus Architecture™. It is a complete framework that addressesthe specific needs of higher education environments.

By listening to the challenges that universities face, Dell gains insightinto how to best help higher education campuses with technologyrequirements. Designed to meet those needs, the Dell CampusArchitecture is made up of four pillars: Academic Computing, StudentComputing, Administrative Computing and Research Computing solutions like TACC’s Lonestar Dell PowerEdge HPC cluster.

Through its partnership with Dell, TACC has been able to expand itsresearch capabilities and further establish itself as a leading advancedcomputing research center in the country.

“The growth in our computational capabilities has fueled a rapid growthin our R&D programs, user base and national profile,” Schulz continued.TACC’s staff of 14 people in 2001 has expanded to more than 60 now andis expected to grow to 120 in the next four to five years.

TACC is committed not only to supporting computationally-intenseresearch projects, but also to advancing supercomputing technology.

Dell’s high performance, reliable solutions combined with its partnershipapproach to higher education technology helps TACC set the pace forsupercomputing research. Please visit www.dell4hied.com/dca to learnhow Dell Campus Architecture can help your university reach its goals.

University of Texas Advanced Computing Center

“The Dell clusters provide

researchers at UT Austin great

capability to tackle challenging

problems by increasing the

problem size and resolution

for excellent fidelity, while

decreasing the time to solution,”—Tommy Minyard

TACC’s Advanced Systems

Group Manager

1 Top 500 Supercomputer Sites, 26th Top500 List, November 24, 2005. http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/basic2 For hard drives, GB means 1 billion bytes; actual capacity varies with preloaded material and operating environment and will be less."3 For hard drives, one TB = one trillion bytes; actual capacity varies with preloaded material and operating environment and will be less."4 Top 500 Supercomputer Sites, 26th Top500 List, November 24, 2005. http://www.top500.org/lists/2005/11/basic

Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography, photography or omissions. Dell, PowerEdge, Dell Campus Architecture and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. Xeon is a trademark

of Intel Corporation. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products.

Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. © 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden.

Call 800-945-8918 or visit www.dell4hied.com for more information.