ACADEMIA

Foundry Networks today announced that it is providing the core, high capacity infrastructure for Vanderbilt University's Advanced Computing Center for Research and Education (ACCRE). The BigIron RX-16's high availability and high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet architecture allows Vanderbilt to consolidate their infrastructure and scale the growth of their consolidated high performance computing (HPC) cluster. Vanderbilt University's ACCRE is the computing hub of a transinstitutional community that is unique in the world of high-performance computing. Researchers using ACCRE's resources represent a diversity of disciplines including genetics, electrical engineering, molecular biology and physiology, high-energy physics, psychology, proteomics, chemical engineering, and math. The sharing of ideas and algorithms within such a diverse community is an important benefit and objective of the computing center, yet the varied resource requirements and usage patterns present unique challenges for the infrastructure design. The network switch selection criteria for ACCRE were based on meeting the cluster performance and availability goals of each research field it serves while staying within the project's budget. The switch platform and architecture needed to scale to hundreds of Gigabit Ethernet and dozens of 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and maintain consistent low latency for all size packets. Furthermore, the switch had to deliver a 24x7 high availability solution and be optimized for non-blocking, wire-speed performance for all system configurations. Finally, the switch needed to have a low Total Cost of Operation (TCO) based on ease of operation, power consumption, heat dissipation, and cooling costs. The BigIron RX-16 exceeds the requirements on all fronts. Scaling to 64 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 768 Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single system, the BigIron RX-16 has plenty of room to grow to handle anticipated traffic growth. The BigIron RX-16 features a fully redundant system design and graceful software failover capabilities to meet the 24x7 high-availability network design objectives. Additionally, the BigIron X-16 boasts the industry's fastest boot-up time for a switch in its class, requiring less than forty-five seconds to restore system operation after a cold restart. Furthermore, the BigIron RX-16 consumes 30% less power than the competition leading to significant savings in electrical and cooling costs. "Performance, scalability, and reliability are the critical requirements for the applications and services that our end-users rely upon," said Alan Tackett, Technical Director of ACCRE at Vanderbilt University. "Foundry's innovative and highly scalable BigIron RX switches help us meet these requirements, and are a critical element of our high-performance of computing strategy." "We are very pleased to be an integral part of Vanderbilt University's solution for scaling their HPC infrastructure and consolidating their network systems and operations," notes Bob Schiff, vice president of product marketing at Foundry Networks. "The BigIron RX-16 provides the University with a highly scalable interconnect for their cluster computing environment delivering the capacity, performance and reliability needed for the ever-growing bandwidth and performance demands of their diverse user communities."