GOVERNMENT

On 4 September 2003, the National Science Foundation approved UCAR's proposal to modify the Phase III delivery of the current Advanced Research Computing System (ARCS) contract with IBM. The modification will include an expansion of the IBM cluster (bluesky) with 14 32-way p690 SMP servers (i.e., frames), with each server based upon the POWER4 microprocessor and operating at a clock frequency of 1.3 GHz. Each server will include 64 GB of memory. The system expansion also includes 10.5 TB of formatted disk storage, which is to be added to the existing disk subsystem, thereby increasing bluesky's total disk capacity to 31 TB. IBM will deliver the new p690 frames to NCAR on on 22 September. Installation and testing will occur in SCD's machine room from 11–19 October (estimated). The IBM bluesky cluster, part of NCAR's Advanced Research Computing System Twelve of the fourteen servers will be directed initially to Community Climate System Model (CCSM) simulations being prepared for participation in the Fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report, which has an imposed deadline for completion of summer 2004. NCAR director Tim Killeen will determine how the expanded computing capacity of bluesky will be used after completion of the IPCC climate simulations. Two of the new servers will be used over the next several months to allow NCAR/SCD to participate in a joint testing program with IBM. These servers will not be available for general computing. In order to attach the new frames to the existing switch adapter hardware, bluesky will be reconfigured. In its new configuration, the expanded bluesky system will consist of 76 eight-way batch LPARS (currently 92) and 25, 32way batch LPARS (currently 9). Peak FLOPS after the installation will jump to 8.7 TFLOPS for bluesky and, combined with blackforest, will represent a peak of 10.8 TFLOPS for NCAR's ARCS.