Gift From Myricom Speeds Up UB’s Supercomputer

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- You can never have a computer that's too fast. That's the thinking of University at Buffalo researchers in the university's Center for Computational Research (CCR), who received a $139,680 equipment donation that will speed up processor communications nearly 100-fold.

Myricom, Inc. has donated leading-edge Myrinet interfaces and switches that have been integrated into the CCR dual-boot Linux/Solaris Sun Microsystems cluster.

Russ Miller, director of the Center for Computational Research and professor of computer science and engineering, called the cluster "unique in the field of scientific research" and said it will provide "a cost-effective advantage for CCR users."

Nanette Boden, Ph.D., vice president of Myricom, Inc., said she is delighted the company could partner with the university, adding that it welcomes the opportunity "to support UB's research in the area of high-performance cluster computing and its applications to technology, engineering and science."

With this additional networking equipment, CCR bolsters its place among the elite supercomputing sites around the world that are using cluster-computing systems for pioneering research.

"With the Myrinet hardware and software coupled with our Sun cluster, our users have the ability to exploit distributed-memory computing in an extremely cost-effective manner," said Miller. "In fact," he added, "this system provides computing power on the same order as systems costing 10 times as much. Our users have been thrilled with the cluster and are astonished with the additional throughput that the Myrinet system provides."

Clusters provide an economical way of achieving high performance by distributing demanding computations across an array of commodity computers. Miller said Myrinet is a packet-communication and switching technology that is widely used to interconnect clusters of workstations, PCs or single-board computers. The Myrinet hardware also is capable of detecting and isolating communication faults, and can automatically switch to alternative communication paths.

Myrinet components are used by more than 1,000 research centers around the world, including many government agencies and universities, to link not only computers in clusters, but also computers in local area networks on campus.

Miller believes this new networking technology will allow CCR to greatly expand its capacity, allowing it to provide more computing cycles at lower cost to the UB and Western New York research communities. According to Miller, fewer than 10 universities in the U.S. have the capabilities of providing high-performance computing cycles as powerful as those available in CCR.

Faculty members from 40 research groups, covering 18 different departments at the university, are using CCR facilities. Students taking CCR's graduate-level courses in high-performance computing are using the cluster along with researchers in chemistry, chemical engineering, and mechanical and aerospace engineering. In addition, the university has worked with local research institutions including Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute as well as local companies such as Occidental Chemical, Praxair and M&T Bank.

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