INDUSTRY

Manchester University in the UK has selected ClusterVision, specialist in Linux supercomputer clusters, to install a 70 processor supercomputer cluster using the new 64-bit AMD Opteron processor. This will be the first public, production-ready AMD Opteron processor based cluster for chemistry applications in Europe. The cluster will be used by scientists of the department of Chemistry who use supercomputers to simulate chemical reactions and complex molecular systems. The research group at Manchester University specialises in biomodelling techniques which use a combination of quantum chemistry and molecular modelling. These techniques are particularly useful in the pharmaceutical drug discovery process. Typical computational chemistry codes used by the Manchester University scientists include Gaussian and Amber. These codes performed very well on preliminary benchmarks performed on AMD Opteron processors. The AMD Opteron processor is AMD's latest processor. Based on the AMD64 architecture, it is designed to run both 32- and 64-bit applications simultaneously. The AMD Opteron processor has an integrated DDR memory controller which dramatically reduces memory latency and allows 256 Terabytes of memory to be addressed at once. The built-in HyperTransport(TM) technology allows up to 8 AMD Opteron processors to be connected at a bandwidth of 19.2 Gigabytes/s. The cluster will be built by ClusterVision using 1U rack-mount servers from RioWorks with a mixture of AMD Opteron processor 240 and 244 models. The cluster will be running the Linux-based ClusterVisionOS cluster operating system and software environment which includes all software required to effectively use and manage the cluster. Professor Ian Hillier, Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at Manchester University, said: "We were impressed with the preliminary benchmark results of popular chemistry codes on the Opteron processor. We look forward to working with AMD and ClusterVision to gain maximum benefit from this new computing resource." "This win validates the importance of 64-bit computing for scientific research, and confirms AMD's credibility in the high performance computing segment in Europe." said Gianluca Degliesposti, Director Business Development EMEA. "The architectural advantages of the AMD Opteron processor, combined with the high-performance cluster technology knowledge of ClusterVision will allow us to offer the perfect solution designed to meet the University's research group needs."