BIG DATA

'With eight cabinets, 256 processors and 3.2 teraflops (3.2 trillion calculations per second) of computing power, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Cray X1 is the largest of its type in the world. Add that total to the lab's IBM Cheetah with 4.5 teraflops, the SGI Ram with 1.5 teraflops and the IBM Eagle with 1 teraflop and the lab's Center for Computational Sciences boasts aggregate power of 10.2 teraflops. The Cray X1 has passed its acceptance test and is undergoing evaluation on a suite of scientific computer programs including global climate modeling, high-temperature superconductivity, astrophysics and fusion energy. ORNL is working with DOE to secure funds to expand the Cray X1 to 10 teraflops this year and to 100-plus teraflops in 2006. Meanwhile, the SGI system also has passed its acceptance test, and researchers plan to evaluate running the entire 256-processor system with just one copy of the operating system. If they're successful, it would push the limits and open new possibilities in the name of science. Finally, the IBM Cheetah is undergoing an upgrade that will quadruple the speed of messages inside the machine. The hope is that this could double the performance of some applications.