Sequoia Supercomputer

Lawrence Livermore’s Sequoia Supercomputer Towers above the Rest in Latest TOP500 List

Thu, 2012-06-14 13:28

MANNHEIM, Germany; BERKELEY, Calif.; and KNOXVILLE, Tenn.—For the first time since November 2009, a United States supercomputer sits atop the TOP500 list of the world’s top supercomputers. Named Sequoia, the IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved an impressive 16.32 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark using 1,572,864 cores.

Sequoia is also one of the most energy efficient systems on the list, which will be released Monday, June 18, at the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. This will mark the 39th edition of the list, which is compiled twice each year.

Complete information on the trends indicated by the latest list, as well as the complete list, can be found on the TOP500 website.

On the latest list, Fujitsu’s “K Computer” installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan, is now the No. 2 system with 10.51 Pflop/s on the Linpack benchmark using 705,024 SPARC64 processing cores. The K Computer held the No. 1 spot on the previous two lists.

The new Mira supercomputer, an IBM BlueGene/Q system at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, debuted at No. 3, with 8.15 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark using 786,432 cores. The other U.S. system in the Top 10 is the upgraded Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which was the top U.S. system on the previous list and now clocks in at No. 6.

The newest list also marks a return of European systems in force. The most powerful system in Europe and No.4 on the List is SuperMUC, an IBM iDataplex system installed at Leibniz Rechenzentrum in Germany. Another German machine, the JuQUEEN BlueGene/Q at Forschungszentrum Juelich, is No. 8.

Italy makes its debut in the Top 10 with an IBM BlueGene/Q system installed at CINECA. The system is at No. 7 on the list with 1.72 Pflop/s performance. In all, four of the top 10 supercomputers are IBM BlueGene/Q systems. France occupies the No. 9 spot with a homegrown Bull supercomputer.

China, which briefly took the No. 1 and No.3 spots in November 2010, has two systems in the Top 10, with Tianhe-1Aat the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin in No. 5 and Nebulae at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen No. 10.

Total performance of all the systems on the list has increased considerably since November 2011, reaching 123.4 Pflop/s. The combined performance of the last list was 74.2 Pflop/s. In all, 20 of the supercomputers on the newest list reached performance levels of 1 Pflop/s or more. The No. 500 machine on the list notched a performance level of 60.8 teraflop/s, which was enough to reach No. 332 just seven months ago.

A look at processors

A total of 372 systems (74.4 percent) are now using Intel processors, down from 384 systems (76.8 percent) on the last list. Intel is now followed by the AMD Opteron family with 63 systems (12.6 percent), same as in the in the previous list. The share of IBM Power processors has increased from 49 to 58 systems (11.6 percent).

58 systems use accelerators or co-processors (up from 39 six months ago), 53 of these use NVIDIA chips, two use Cell processors, two use ATI Radeon and there is one new system with Intel MIC technology.

The top vendors

IBM kept its lead in systems and has now 213 systems (42.6 percent) compared to HP with 138 systems (27.6 percent). HP is slightly down from 141 systems (28.2 percent) seven months ago, compared to IBM with 223 systems (44.6 percent). In the system category, Cray, Appro, SGI and Bull follow with 5.4 percent, 3.6 percent, 3.2 percent, and 3.2 percent respectively.

IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list in performance and considerably increased its share with 47.5 percent of installed total performance (up from 27.3 percent). HP is second with 10.2 percent down from 13.1 percent. Due to the impressive performance of the No. 1 K Computer, Fujitsu follows closely in the third spot with 9.9 percent, down from 14.7 percent. Cray follows in fourth place in this category with 8.9 percent, down from 14.3 percent.

Where are they now?

The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 253 of the 500 systems (down from 263). The European share (107 systems – up from 103) is still lower than the Asian share (121 systems – up from 118). Dominant countries in Asia are China with 68 systems (down from 74), Japan with 34 systems (up from 30). In Europe, UK, France, and Germany, are almost equal with 25, 22, and 20 respectively.

About the TOP500 List

The TOP500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Germany; Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Source: Top 500 Supercomputer Sites

Cloud Computing - A Business View

So, at the end of the day: What’s Cloud Computing? If we “google" Cloud Computing, we will find several flavors and standpoints about same thing. But I have been noticed all of them are too technical. And I tightly believe the late for a mass adoption of Cloud in the companies is exactly the lack of a Cloud´s Business definition that would help companies’ owners, managers and CFOs to fund and manage migration. Hereafter we present you three definitions (a government standards institute, a big cloud player and an IT research and advisory company) that shall to help us rather than understand clouds, make it more business-friendly and further take advantage of it in our business.

According NIST (US National Institute of Standards and Technology) cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of:

·         Five essential characteristics: On-demand self-service, Broad network access, Resource  pooling, Rapid elasticity and Measured service;

·         Three service models: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS);

·         Four deployment models: Private cloud, Community cloud, Public cloud and Hybrid cloud.

Gartner defines cloud computing as a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies.

For IBM cloud computing is a new model of consuming and delivering IT and business services. It enables users to get what they need, as they need it—from advanced analytics and business applications to IT infrastructure and platform services, including virtual servers and storage.

That means money. Everything exposed above means save money. And nowadays saving money and cutting costs is the top priority for any business on any market sector. And that’s not only for large or global enterprises. The cloud computing benefits will be more perceived and most quickly by SMB companies. I tightly believe the more small a company is the more benefits it can take from Cloud Computing.

You’re an entrepreneur and want to start a new business. You probably have to create a website to show and sell your products or services. Or even have to develop new software to support your business demand. You’re just getting start and maybe do not have much money to invest. So, what can you do? How Cloud Computing could help you?

Imagine a world where you can host your website and have all infra structure necessary to run it in a place where you simply don’t know and for sure don’t mind for you. Because, what you need to know is your website infrastructure will be there to be used and consumed as you need. Your concerns can be narrowed and your efforts can be focused in your core business and does not matter what the cloud is doing to support your sells. You no longer need a room or IT team engaged to support your services.

As well as if you need new software or maybe escalate capacity to receive incoming requests from clients or even make your site available to receive tens of millions of simultaneous access and be able to close deals during a seasonable period.

You can get and order all these services when you can and when you want by using Cloud Computing services.

Office tools, project management tracking tools, servers, storage, software applications for any sort of business and whatever you need from IT to support your business you can find in the Cloud.

And the worth here is you will have a SLA to guarantee services and you are paying for a service tailored for your business needs.

Adriano Balaguer

IT Professional

New Ways of Thinking - IBM SyNAPSE

Beyond machines
For more than half a century, computers have been little better than calculators with storage structures and programmable memory, a model that scientists have continually aimed to improve.
Comparatively, the human brain—the world's most sophisticated computer—can perform complex tasks rapidly and accurately using the same amount of energy as a 20 watt light bulb in a space equivalent to a 2 liter soda bottle.


Cognitive computing: thought for the future
Making sense of real-time input flowing in at a dizzying rate is a Herculean task for today's computers, but would be natural for a brain-inspired system. Using advanced algorithms and silicon circuitry, cognitive computers learn through experiences, find correlations, create hypotheses, and remember—and learn from—the outcomes.
For example, a cognitive computing system monitoring the world's water supply could contain a network of sensors and actuators that constantly record and report metrics such as temperature, pressure, wave height, acoustics and ocean tide, and issue tsunami warnings based on its decision making.


Meeting of the minds
Researchers at IBM have been working on a cognitive computing project called Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE). By reproducing the structure and architecture of the brain—the way its elements receive sensory input, connect to each other, adapt these connections, and transmit motor output—the SyNAPSE project models computing systems that emulate the brain's computing efficiency, size and power usage without being programmed.
IBM is combining principles from nanoscience, neuroscience and supercomputing as part of a multi-year cognitive computing initiative. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded approximately US$21 million in new funding from for phase 2 of the SyNAPSE project. For this project, a world-class, multi-dimensional team has been assembled, consisting of IBM researchers and collaborators from Columbia University; Cornell University; University of California, Merced; and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

IBM Lotus Symphony

Following with the posts where I have recommended some good and useful free tools, today I'd like to present you with the IBM Lotus Symphony. It's another good option for anyone else that intend to use free office applications. Designed and kept by IBM, Lotus Symphony is a set of applications for creating, editing, and sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

IBM Lotus Symphony

Download here - Be Free. Work Smart.

If IBM owns Java ...

The future of open source Java development under IBM

The Sun-IBM merger hasn't been finalized but there's little doubt this week that the deal is coming together. Many are looking for clues as to how open source, Java-based development will change -- and change it will -- under the Big Blue Sun.

Super Computador

Sete meses depois de a IBM ter finalizado o computador mais poderoso do mundo, o Road runner, a companhia anunciou nesta terça-feira (3) que está desenvolvendo uma máquina ainda mais potente.

O novo supercomputador Sequoia que será entregue em 2011 ao Departamento de Energia dos Estados Unidos -- a máquina será usada no Laboratório Nacional de Lawrence Livermore.

O Sequoia terá uma velocidade de 20 petaflops. A máquina anterior, entregue em junho ao Departamento de Energia, superou a barreira do 1 petaflop – ou um quadrilhão de cálculos por segundo.