AEROSPACE

Paracel, Inc., a business unit of the Celera Genomics Group of Applera Corporation and a leading provider of applied high-performance computing solutions, today announced that the University of Southern California Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering has purchased a Paracel Cyclone system to simulate rarefied gas flows. Cyclone, a state-of-the-art Linux cluster, was pre-configured by Paracel to optimize the performance of the SMILE code (Statistical Modeling In the Low-density Environment) that the department is using as part of a U.S. Air Force grant. With the computational demands of SMILE, the department required a system that would deliver excellent performance and reliability with minimal administration. "Research institutions and corporations are turning to Linux clusters to run computational fluid dynamics applications like SMILE because they deliver high performance at a lower cost than proprietary SMP systems," said Jenifer Audette, product manager at Paracel. "We increase the price/performance by delivering Cyclone as a turnkey system that has been pre-configured for our customers' applications." Under the direction of research assistant professor Sergey F. Gimelshein, Ph.D. the department is using SMILE to study flows over spacecraft at high altitudes and low-speed micro-scale flows. Previously, the department had to rely on shared computing resources from the Department of Defense. "Cyclone has given us a dedicated high-performance computing resource that is easy to administer. The system arrived pre-configured and was running SMILE the same day," said Dr. Gimelshein. "Reliability was also an important factor in our purchase decision as our department needs to remain focused on our research and not IT administration." Protecting Long-Term Investment Built with the highest-quality components, Cyclone provides peak performance and long-term reliability. Paracel carefully selects and tests each component and uses certified parts to reduce unplanned downtime and the need to dedicate hours of IT resources to solve problems. Each system is backed by a three-year hardware warranty, and Paracel's HPC service and support.