THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA
Nov 3, 2000
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THE UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA |
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by Mike McNeney It moves at the speed of 200 desktop computers,
performing billions of calculations per second and with this
month’s addition of more processing muscle it will be
the fastest supercomputer on any university campus in
Canada. Dubbed “Minerva” (for the Roman goddess of
wisdom), UVic’s new high-performance computing facility
provides “world-class hardware for complex, world-class
research,” says Dr. Nikitas Dimopoulos, chair of
electrical and computer engineering and the leader of
efforts to secure funding for the project. Minerva, with a list price of $5.98 million, is supported
by grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the
B.C. Knowledge Development Fund, the National Research
Council, and UVic, along with a research grant and a
“significant” hardware discount from IBM. The UVic supercomputer (an IBM RS/6000 SP) will have 128
processors running at a clock speed of 375 MHz after its
November tune-up. Based on the June listing of the fastest
supercomputers in the world (compiled by the universities of
Tennessee and Mannheim, Germany), Minerva would rank among
the top 100. New “Top 500” rankings will be published next
week at a supercomputing conference in Dallas. That the list
is revised and issued twice a year reflects the rapid rate
at which the technology progresses. “Essentially, the capabilities of supercomputers
double every 18 months,” says Dimopoulos. “So
it’s very important to keep upgrading and enhancing the
system.” The pace of technology means that UVic will only briefly
hold the “fastest in Canada” distinction as other
universities improve their systems in the coming months. So,
the long-term plan (in this environment, in about a year) is
to continue to add high-performance storage to the tune of
several hundred terabytes and to make UVic the centre of
Canadian academic research requiring the power of a
supercomputer. Since becoming fully operational in June, Minerva has
been running at optimal capacity. The demanding research
tasks it performs — whether testing models based on
mathematical simulations, processing large digital images,
or crunching huge volumes of data — involve all sorts
of UVic research efforts in natural science and
technology. Experiments that used to take months to compute can now
be completed in days, if not sooner. “It allows us to increase the number and length of
experiments we can perform with the UVic earth system
climate model,” says Dr. Andrew Weaver (earth and ocean
sciences), who studies the effect of oceans on our
climate. Dr. Aaron Gulliver (electrical and computer engineering)
says, “My research into new communications systems
requires extensive simulation to assess performance and test
new designs. Minerva has allowed us to obtain results far
quicker than before.” In biology, Dr. Ben Koop’s work with genes and their
functions is aided by Minerva’s ability to conduct
“large comparisons of DNA sequences in order to
identify novel genes and their functions within the
genome.” High-quality crystals are vital components of
semiconductors, and Dr. Sadik Dost in mechanical engineering
is looking at two crystal growth techniques that can be
simulated, but only with powerful computers. For his work,
Dost says Minerva is “essential.” “Minerva is a tremendous resource for our
group,” says particle physics researcher Dr. Randy
Sobie. “We’re using it for one of the most precise
tests of the fundamental assumption that the ‘weak
interaction’ is identical for the electron and its
sister particles (the muon and tau).” Other research groups using the system are involved in cosmology, fluid dynamics, network communications and electromagnetics. The system is housed in the Clearihue building and is accessed remotely by research groups. |