Columbia: PADT’s Killer Kilo-Core CUBE Cluster is Online

Categories: ,

iIn the back of PADT’s product development lab is a closet.  Yesterday afternoon PADT’s tireless IT team crammed themselves into the back of that closet and powered up our new cluster, bringing 1104 connected cores online.  It sounded like a jet taking off when we submitted a test FLUENT solve across all the cores.  Music to our ears.

We have recently become slammed with benchmarks for ANSYS and CUBE customers as well as our normal load of services work, so we decided it was time to pull the trigger and double the size of our cluster while adding a storage node.  And of course, we needed it yesterday.  So the IT team rolled up their sleeves, configured a design, ordered hardware, built it up, tested it all, and got it on line, in less than two weeks.  This was while they did their normal IT work and dealt with a steady stream of CUBE sales inquiries.  But it was a labor of love. We have all dreamed about breaking that thousand core barrier on one system, and this was our chance to make it happen.

If you need more horsepower and are looking for a solution that hits that sweet spot between cost and performance, visit our CUBE page at www.cube-hvpc.com and learn more about our workstations, servers, and clusters.  Our team (after they get a little rest) will be more than happy to work with you to configure the right system for your real world needs.

Now that the sales plug is done, lets take a look at the stats on this bad boy:

Name: Columbia
After the class of battlestars in Battlestar Galactica
Brand: CUBE High Value Performance Compute Cluster, by PADT
Nodes: 18
17 compute, 1 storage/control node, 4 CPU per Node
Cores: 1104
AMD Opteron: 4 x 6308 3.5 GHz, 32 x 6278 2.4 GHz, 36 x 6380 2.5 GHz
Interconnect: 18 port MELLANOX IB 4X QDR Infiniband switch
Memory: 4.864 Terabytes
Solve Disk: 43.5 TB RAID 0
Storage Disk: 64 TB RAID 50

Here are some pictures of the build and the final product:

a
A huge delivery from our supplier, Supermicro, started the process. This was the first pallet.

b
The build included installing the largest power strip any of us had ever seen.

c
Building a cluster consists of doing the same thing, over and over and over again.

f
We took over PADT’s clean room because it turns out you need a lot of space to build something this big.

g
It is fun to get the chance to build the machine you always wanted to build

h
2AM Selfie: Still going strong!

d
Almost there. After blowing a breaker, we needed to wait for some more
power to be routed to the closet.

e
Up and running!
Ratchet and Clank providing cooling air containment.

David, Sam, and Manny deserve a big shout-out for doing such a great job getting this thing up and running so fast!

When I logged on to my first computer, a TRS-80, in my high-school computer lab, I never, ever thought I would be running on a machine this powerful.  And I would have told people they were crazy if they said a machine with this much throughput would cost less than $300,000.  It is a good time to be a simulation user!

Now I just need to find a bigger closet for when we double the size again…

CUBE-HVPC-Logo-wide

Categories

Get Your Ansys Products & Support from the Engineers who Contribute to this Blog.

Technical Expertise to Enable your Additive Manufacturing Success.

PADT’s Pulse Newsletter

Keep up to date on what is going on at PADT by subscribing to our newsletter.


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Share this post:

Upcoming Events

03/28/2024

SAF Blue Carpet Event

03/28/2024

2024 Arizona Space Summit

04/03/2024

Low Frequency Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

04/03/2024

Venture Madness Conference Reception + Expo

04/03/2024

Stratasys F3300: Game Changing Throughput - Webinar

04/08/2024

39th Space Symposium

04/09/2024

39th Space Symposium

04/10/2024

Discovery Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

04/10/2024

39th Space Symposium

04/11/2024

39th Space Symposium

04/22/2024

Experience Stratasys Truck Tour: Houston, TX

04/24/2024

Structures Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 (2)

04/24/2024

Experience Stratasys Truck Tour: Houston, TX

05/07/2024

Experience Stratasys Truck Tour: Albuquerque, NM

05/08/2024

Fluent Materials Processing Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

05/09/2024

Experience Stratasys Truck Tour: Los Alamos, NM

05/14/2024

Simulation World 2024

05/15/2024

Simulation World 2024

05/16/2024

Simulation World 2024

05/22/2024

Optics Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

06/12/2024

Connect Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

06/26/2024

Structures Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 (3) - Webinar

06/27/2024

E-Mobility and Clean Energy Summit

07/10/2024

Fluids Updates in Ansys 2024 R1 - Webinar

08/05/2024

2024 CEO Leadership Retreat

10/23/2024

PADT30 | Nerdtoberfest 2024

Search in PADT site

Contact Us

Most of our customers receive their support over the phone or via email. Customers who are close by can also set up a face-to-face appointment with one of our engineers.

For most locations, simply contact us: