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Environmental Modeling and Visualization Lab (EMVL) Computational Resources
The SGI Altix 4700 (amber) provides a high-end scientific computing resource for visualization and high performance computing (HPC) projects and models. This HPC server was installed in November 2006 at the EPA's National Computing Center. The Altix has more than three times the compute capacity of the system it replaces, enabling customers to address more sophisticated and complex environmental problems.
The HPC server provides high-end scientific computing resource for Vis/HPC projects and models. The SGI Altix 4700 (amber) was installed in November 2006 at the Agency's National Computing Center. The Altix effectively triples the memory, processing, and performance capacity of the previous system. Amber has more than three times the compute capacity of the system it replaces, enabling researchers to address more sophisticated and complex environmental problems.
- 116 compute blades, each containing one dual-core Intel Itanium2 processor and 8 GB of memory, for a system-wide total of 232 CPUs and 928 GB of memory
- Cache-coherent non-uniform memory access (ccNUMA) architecture, in which each CPU can access not only its local memory but also the memory of any other node through a globally shared address space
- Each Itanium2 processor operates at 1.6 GHz and contains 9 MB of L3 cache per core, or 18 MB of L3 cache per processor
- The peak floating point rate of each CPU, that is, each core, is 6.4 Gflop/s, and the system is configured with 4 GB of memory/core
- Each compute blade has two NUMALink4 connections to a network of routers with a peak bandwidth of 6.4 GB/s per link
- Two direct-attached file systems provide a total of 70 TB of usable file space
- Currently configured with 20 single-core Intel Itanium2 processors/80 GB for interactive use and 212 CPUs/848 GB for batch jobs.
Data Management Resources
Archival storage management at EMVL is provided by three Sun X4600 servers providing high-capacity tape drives, more disk for staging files to and from tape, and greater bandwidth. This system is backed by a complex of Storage Tek (STK) tape silos that provide near-line access to nearly 4 Petabytes (PB) of data. To ensure high availability, the archival server consists of two primary nodes at the National Computer Center (NCC) with a third node at the Reproductive Toxicology Facility (RTF) providing data backup for the primaries.
- Three Sun X4600 File Servers
- Sun J4400 disk subsystem with 45 TB disk
- Archival Storage Management (ASM) system, with 13,600 tapes in production
- Two ThinkCP Technologies Network Attached Storage devices (12 TB disk each)
Visualization Resources
Sophisticated visualization hardware and software support high-end, R&D visualization computing, providing the ideal technology for projects such as modeling the human respiratory system or wind flow through an urban landscape. These visualizations can be converted to animations for display or graphics suitable for publishing.
- SGI Prism Extreme (20 processors, 80 GB memory, 1 TB disk)
- SGI Onyx3400 (8 processors, 218 GB disk, InfiniteReality3 graphics)
- Media-100 digital editing system
- Large-format, high-definition display system
