---------------------------------------------------------------------- H H PPP CCC UK NATIONAL HPC SERVICE H H P P C C -------------------------- HHHHH PPP C x x provided by H H P C C xx EPCC and H H P CCC x x CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HPCx User Mailing 082 22 September 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents ** HPC-UK: A new HPC consortium links CCLRC, Edinburgh and Manchester ** HPCx to be upgraded to Power 5 in November ** Course: Message-Passing Programming with MPI ** 3RD HPCx Annual Seminar: Daresbury, 5 December 2005 ** EPCC Workshop: Blue Gene and QCDOC: Next generation of HPC architecture ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings-- HPC-UK: A NEW HPC CONSORTIUM LINKS CCLRC, EDINBURGH AND MANCHESTER The Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester, and CCLRC announce the formation of a new consortium to support UK research using HPC. The partners in the consortium have supported all the UK's national academic HPC services over the last 20 years, including recently both HPCx and CSAR. Between us, we think we have a breadth and depth of experience, in computational science, in applications areas and in the provision of service to users, which is truly world class. For those of us who work in the HPCx and CSAR services, this is a really exciting development. Press release: http://www.hpcx.ac.uk/about/hpcx/hpcuk.html HPC-UK: http://www.hpc-uk.ac.uk/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HPCx TO BE UPGRADED TO POWER 5 IN NOVEMBER The HPCx consortium has recently had approval from EPSRC for a significant upgrade of the HPCx system. The current Power 4+ system will be replaced by a Power 5 system in November 2005. This will then also allow the Phase 3 upgrade, due in the first half of 2006, to be a Power 5 system. The Power 5 systems will be based on Power 5 p5-575 dual core compute nodes with a frequency of 1.5 GHz; each node has 16 CPUs and 32 GB of memory. The initial system to be installed in November will consist of some 96 nodes connected through the High Performance Switch making a total of 1536 Power 5 CPUs; this should ensure that the new system at least matches the performance of the existing Power 4+-based system. Moreover, each processor will have double the memory of the existing processors and the total memory will be more than 3TB which is almost double the current total. This enhanced memory addresses one of the most important issues raised by users and should allow significant new capability science. We have already been working closely with IBM to plan the upgrade in such a way as to minimise disruption to users and to ensure that the SC2005 experiments are successful. The timetable for the Phase 3 upgrade has not yet been finalised but will happen by the middle of next year. This will involve adding additional Power 5 nodes on to the switch infrastructure to roughly double the performance and the total memory. Upgrading HPCx to Power 5 will allow the service to remain on IBM's key technology curve throughout its lifetime, i.e., until at least the end of 2008. This will ensure that users gain maximum benefit from future improvements in compilers and other tools, libraries and improvements to the switch performance. The upgraded system will be built alongside the existing Phase 2 machine. At the time of the changeover, we anticipate a maximum of two days' break in the service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- COURSE: MESSAGE-PASSING PROGRAMMING WITH MPI EPCC, Edinburgh Tuesday-Thursday, 25 - 27 October, 2005 The world's largest supercomputers are used almost exclusively to run applications which are parallelised using Message Passing. The course covers all the basic knowledge required to write parallel programs using this programming model, and is directly applicable to almost every parallel computer architecture. This course uses the de facto standard for message passing, the Message Passing Interface (MPI). Attendance is free for UK-based academics, but places are limited. For further information, and to register, please go here: http://www.hpcx.ac.uk/support/training/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3RD HPCX ANNUAL SEMINAR: DARESBURY, 5 DECEMBER 2005 The third in HPCx's very successful series of Annual Seminars will take place on Monday 5th December 2005 in the Merrison Lecture Theatre at Daresbury Laboratory. The programme will start at 9:30 and will end at about 16:30. The seminar will have the theme "Capability Science on HPCx", and will include presentations by HPCx users and staff. Attendance is free to all UK-based academics. You can find further information and a registration form on this page: http://www.hpcx.ac.uk/about/events/annual2005/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- EPCC WORKSHOP: BLUE GENE AND QCDOC: NEXT GENERATION OF HPC ARCHITECTURE National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh Tuesday-Thursday, 4-6 October, 2005 The first IBM e-Server Blue Gene system in Europe was delivered to EPCC in December 2004. The University of Edinburgh has also recently installed a QCDOC machine, providing one of the world's most powerful systems dedicated to the numerical investigation of Quantum Chromodynamics. The Blue Gene and QCDOC architectures offer a significant breakthrough in supercomputing technology, providing unprecedented computing performance coupled with very low power consumption, floor space and cost. With the growing popularity of these systems, across a wide range of applications, a workshop investigating their full potential is highly topical. As the only centre in the world to host both a Blue Gene and a QCDOC system, the University of Edinburgh is the ideal location for such a workshop. The workshop will be sponsored by IBM, and hosted by EPCC at the National e-Science Centre, Edinburgh, UK. The programme comprises a series of presentations from experts users, developers and programmers. Registration for this event is free. For further details and to register, please go here: http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/BGworkshop/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Regards --John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Earlier mailings: http://www.hpcx.ac.uk/support/notices/index.html To be removed from the mailing list: log into your website account, go to the "Update" page, and click the "Opt out of user emails" field; then click "Commit update". -- John Fisher j.fisher@epcc.ed.ac.uk HPCx User Administration and Helpdesk HPCx: http://www.hpcx.ac.uk Helpdesk: support@hpcx.ac.uk Phone: +44 131 650 5029 Fax: +44 131 650 6555