That means that we widely ignore peak performance and TOP500 ranking.’ For HLRS, the main motivation is the best solution for our users. Resch said HLRS users are ‘working with codes that do not benefit from the theoretical peak of accelerators but rely heavily on memory bandwidth. Primarily, this is because its first role is to assist the academic users of Stuttgart – but the mindset and approach have far-reaching consequences for all its users, including those from industry.
This is a recurrent theme for HLRS the whole infrastructure is designed to support its users. We turned down an offer of a theoretically faster system that would have used accelerators.’ However, as Resch explains, the goal when designing Hazel Hen was not to create the fastest supercomputer in Europe, but to provide a system suitable for specific applications and users: ‘It was by accident that our Cray XC40 is currently the second fastest system in the European Union. The HLRS supercomputer, which began operation in October 2015, is based on the Intel Haswell processor and the Cray Aries network and is designed for sustained application performance and high scalability. With a peak performance of 7.42 petaflops (quadrillion floating point operations per second), Hazel Hen is one of the most powerful HPC systems in the world (position 9 on the TOP500, 06/2016) and is the second fastest supercomputer in the European Union. HLRS’ flagship supercomputer is Hazel Hen, an 185,088-core system (7,712 compute nodes) based on a Cray XC40. While training and education are massively important to HPC, it should be made clear that, to emulate this program of bwHPC, a country or organisation would need a considerable computing infrastructure that can take users on the journey from scientists or engineers to HPC experts. This model is a blueprint for the rest of Germany, said Resch: ‘Users arriving at the top – which is HLRS – have a lot of expertise before they even submit a proposal.’ The model provides significant organisational and scientific support throughout the various stages of this pyramid, allowing HLRS patrons to use the resources appropriately. ‘HLRS has established a concept in the state of Baden-Württemberg called bwHPC, creating a pyramid of power in which users move from local systems through central clusters up to the national supercomputer facility.’ ‘All of our users are experts,’ said Professor Michael Resch, director of the HLRS.
#Fluid dynamics blueprint software#
This is taking shape through a series of training programs to ensure users have the necessary skills to make their applications run effectively but also in the procurement and continued development of hardware and software by HLRS.
To help manage the resources at HLRS, the centre has devised a strategy that focuses on sustained application performance. The oldest of the centres, the High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), is primarily an academic resource but also supports industrial users. With hardware spread across three high-performance computing (HPC) facilities, Germany is a powerhouse in European supercomputing.
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