NETWORKS

Topspin Communications today announced that Netherlands-based SARA Computing and Networking Services have successfully deployed Topspin's InfiniBand-based Server Switches as the interconnect fabric for its new 275-node server cluster, located in Almere, Netherlands. SARA Computing and Networking Services, the Dutch National Supercomputing Center, has supplied for more than 30 years a complete package of high-performance computing, high-performance networking and infrastructure services throughout the Netherlands and Europe. Among SARA's customers are scientific, educational, and government institutions and the business community. The SARA compute cluster consists of 275 Dell PowerEdge 1850 servers each with two Intel Xeon processors with Intel Em64t-technology, connected via five Topspin 270 and two Topspin 120 InfiniBand-based server switches. Each server also contains a Topspin 10Gbps InfiniBand host channel adapter and Topspin's fully supported MPI host software for Debian Linux. SARA chose InfiniBand based on detailed evaluations and recommendations from its highly experienced engineers and researchers who concluded that InfiniBand provides the ideal combination of throughput and latency performance, an industry-standard technology and attractive price points. "Our charter is to provide best-in-class computing facilities for scientific research throughout the Netherlands," said Dr. ir. Anwar Osseyran, managing director of SARA. "Topspin and Dell offered SARA an integrated solution combining cutting-edge technology with fantastic price/performance ratio. The cluster installed easily and has been highly reliable. Our customers are pleased with the new capabilities we can offer them." "We're pleased to be selected by such a prestigious institution as SARA," said Phil Alexander, director of EMEA Sales for Topspin. "We've worked closely together with them throughout this project, delivering a highly specialized design and implementation in record time."