PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD Although supercomputers are able to process massive amounts of data—such as complex high-density physics experiments—they often take months to sift through information and provide results to researchers. But a new supercomputer at University of California, San Diego, is completing powerful data crunching with rapid results, already aiding a wide range of research.
Called Trestles, the high-performance computing system boasts impressive specs: 10,368 processor cores, a peak speed of 100 teraflop/second, 20 terabytes memory and 39 terabytes of flash memory. As most supercomputers use spinning disk technology, the system’s use of flash memory, more common in small devices such as cell phones, is a major innovation that adds to its speed.
“Flash disks can read data as much as 100 times faster than spinning disk, write data faster and are more energy-efficient and reliable,” explained Allan Snavely, associate director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), according to a statement. “Trestles uses 120GB flash drives in each node, and users have already demonstrated substantial performance improvements for many applications compared to spinning disk.”
The Trestles high-performance computing system is a part of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at University of California. (Source: SDSC)
The supercomputer has already been used in more than 50 research projects in the seven months since its launch earlier this year.
“Trestles was designed to enable modest-scale and gateway researchers to be as computationally productive as possible,” said Richard Moore, deputy director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, according to a statement. “It has attracted researchers from diverse areas who need access to a fully supported supercomputer with shorter turnaround times than has been typical for most systems.”
The machine has assisted an array of projects, including work in astrophysics molecular dynamics. Because the system is designed for a large number of users, individual projects are restricted to 1.5 million single processor hours per year.
One recent project that used Trestles dealt with climate change and the effect of aerosols. Because researchers lack a total understanding of the chemical properties of aerosols, quantitative predictions about climate change are often difficult. The supercomputer, however, allowed a team of scientists to more accurately analyze data about the substances.
“Since our computational methodologies take into account the quantum nature of both electrons and nuclei using a ‘first principles’ approach, our molecular simulations are computationally highly expensive,” said Francesco Paesani, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego, according to a statement. “Having access to a powerful computing cluster such as Trestles has greatly benefited us.”
The Trestles supercomputer was built as a result of a $2.8 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). To learn more about the machine and the projects that have used it, click here.
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