Largest Sun Supercomputer in Europe at Jlich Research Centre

Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the supercomputer JuRoPA2 went online last week at Forschungszentrum Jlich in Germany. The new high-performance computing (HPC) system at Jlich Supercomputing Centre is the most powerful Sun technology-based computer in Europe, featuring 2,208 nodes supported by the Sun Constellation System and Sun Blade X6275 server modules. The Sun Constellation Systems operate with record-setting Intel Xeon processor 5570 series and communicate with each other via six newly developed ‘Project M9’ InfiniBand switches from Sun. The ‘Project M9’ switches supply quad data rate (QDR) and up to 648 ports while slashing the amount of complex cabling required. Like the Sun Constellation System, they are part of Sun’s open PetaFLOP architecture, a package of integrated components for HPC applications.

In addition to Jlich, the Sun Constellation System is also installed in Germany at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Braunschweig and at RWTH Aachen University. A further core element of the JuRoPA2 supercomputer is the Lustre parallel file system, installed on 14 Sun storage servers, which has a current total capacity of 500 terabytes. The project is supported by a development consortium of companies – including Sun, Intel, Bull, ParTec and Mellanox – in cooperation with Forschungszentrum Jlich.

"By choosing the Sun Constellation System, based on open standards and open source software, Forschungszentrum Jlich has decided on an HPC platform with the highest level of openness the market has to offer," said Marc Hamilton, Vice President, HPC, Sun Microsystems. "The Intel-based blades used by the system are leading elements of numerous HPC benchmarks and thus ideal for applications requiring ultra-high performance."

Jlich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) is the largest high-performance computer center in Germany and among the largest of its kind in Europe. The Centre supplies computing capacity for Forschungszentrum Jlich and also provides researchers from a range of fields, including climate research, chemistry and medicine, with the infrastructure they require for complex calculations and simulations. As coordinator of PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe), JSC is at the top level of Europe’s HPC landscape. PRACE also receives financial support from the European Union. JuRoPA will be used as a PetaFLOP prototype within the PRACE-project.