Contents - Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme
Contents - Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme
Contents - Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme
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3.8 EquipmentandPremises<br />
3.8.1 ComputerFacilities<br />
Computingfacilities<br />
Manyofourscientistsaredoingextensivenumericalcalculations,thisiswhythemainfocusofourcomputerequipmentinourinstituteisonthecomputationalthroughput,whereastherequestforgraphicsis<br />
rathermoderateonaverage.ThisimpliesthatmostofficesareequippedwithX-Terminals(ThinClients)<br />
andonlyaboutonethirdofourscientistsuseworkstations.Currentlytheinstitutehostsapproximately<br />
320serverswithatotalof3000CPUcoresonsiteand,newsince2010,acomputeclusterlocatedin<br />
Garchingwithanadditionalamountof1500CPUcores.<br />
Ourcomputersofferfromoneto128CPUcoresandamaximumof1Terabyteofmainmemoryand<br />
uptofiftyTerabytesoflocaldiskspace.WeusebothGigabitandFastEthernetasalocalareanetwork<br />
interconnect. Bytheendof2010about95%ofthecomputingpoweravailablewasbasedonLinux<br />
systemsand5%onsystemsrunningHP-UXonIntelIA64CPUs.Inordertomaximizethecomputational<br />
throughputinourcomputingcluster,werunanetworkqueuingsystemwhichachievesanoverallaverage<br />
utilizationofmorethan90%oftheavailableCPUtime. BesidestheUnixclusterthereareabout20<br />
PC’sinourinstitute,runningaWindowsoperatingsystem,mainlyforofficeapplications.Wealsooffer<br />
about50laptopsforourscientistsinordertoprovidethemthepossibilitytocontinuetheirworkwhile<br />
theyareabroad.FurthermorewearerunningaWindowsTerminalserverinournetworkinordertooffer<br />
accesstoaWindowsenvironmentfromeverydesktop.Fornumericalandanalyticalcalculationsthereare<br />
varioussoftwarepackagesavailableforourscientists.Duringthelastyearswenoticedatendencytowards<br />
integratedsoftwareenvironmentswhilefewerpeoplearewritingtheirownprogramsusingprogramming<br />
languageslikeCorFortran.<br />
Forourshort-termguestswhoparticipateinseminarsandworkshopswerunaseparatesmallcluster.<br />
WeofferthosegueststhepossibilitytoconnecttheirownlaptopstoournetworkoruseX-Terminalsto<br />
accessthatcluster.Theseparationwasintroducedforbothgreaterconvenienceandhighersecurity.<br />
WeareconnectedtotheInternetusingabandwidthof100MBit/s.Redundancyisachievedbyautomatic<br />
failovertotheneighboringinstitute’sinternetconnection(andviceversafortheirconnection)incaseof<br />
problemswithourprimaryInternetconnection.<br />
ThecomputerdepartmentisrunbyfiveemployeeswiththeirrespectivemaintasksbeingUnixand<br />
networks,webandWindows,hardwareandgeneralusersupport. Inadditiontothosefivepeoplewe<br />
employonetraineeandonestudentoftheBerufsakademieDresden. Smallertomediumprogramming<br />
tasksaredonebyourstaffandtwostudentswhoareworkingpart-timeinthecomputerdepartment.<br />
Largeprogrammingtaskshavetobegiventoexternalcompanies.<br />
Future<br />
Linuxwillcontinuetobethemainoperatingsystemforournumbercrunchersinthenearfuture,at<br />
presentrunningmainlyonIntelXeonbasedhardware.OtheroperatingsystemslikeHPUXwillonlyplay<br />
aminorroleforsomespecializedapplications.Weexpectthatthenearfuturewillseegraphicsprocessing<br />
units(GPU)beingusedtosomeextentbyourscientists,sincetheyallowforconsiderablespeedupsfor<br />
someofthecodesusedatourinstitute. DuetothefactthatthenumberofcoresperCPUissteadily<br />
increasingweexpectthatthetotalnumberofsystemsatourinstitutewillonlychangemoderatelyinthe<br />
nearfuture.<br />
History<br />
Sinceabout2002, wehavedevelopedaLinuxbasedPCclusterthatdeliversseveraltimesthecpu<br />
performance of the previously used servers. The new extension building which was finished late<br />
2005addedseveralnewofficesandalsoanexcellentnewserverroomforourcomputers. In2007<br />
we decided to complement our linux environment by computers based on Intel’s IA64 (Itanium)<br />
architecture in order to support some applications that perform particularly well on this platform.<br />
3.8. EquipmentandPremises 155
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