High Performance Computing (HPC)

Partnership Supercomputing Program:
With VBI Partnership Supercomputing the collective investment results in a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts. In this program, partners pool funds to purchase nodes within a larger supercomputer cluster. The VBI computing core provides power, cooling, racks, and the high-speed communication fabric. The supercomputer is built, managed and maintained by our dedicated staff, leading to enhanced performance, reliability, security, and application availability. This enables our research partners to focus on their science goals while system housing, buildup, maintenance, upkeep, upgrades and troubleshooting are handled by our in-house technology group members.

Benefits of Partnership Computing participation

• Support Including 24x7 Hardware Monitoring
• Centralized Hardware Maintenance
• Timely Application of Software Patches and Updates
• Agile Operational Model – This model of operation gives you the ability to use more cores than initially purchased during periods of non-peak demand.

The HPC Center at VBI provides the following

• Machine room space with electrical power (including backup generators) and redundant cooling sources
• Robust network capacity
• System software (including Intel Compiler Suite), clustering software, comprehensive system administration and a suite of open source applications
• Ample local temporary storage for use during computational runs
• Minimal time to install user-purchased applications on the cluster; complex or problematic installations performed on a for-fee basis
• In-house technology team handles procurement and receipt of the cluster and nodes, unpacking, setup and testing

Shadowfax, our current central system, features:

Compute Nodes:
2 Dell C6100, 8 compute nodes total, each node featuring:

•  Dual-socket Intel Xeon X5670 2.9GHz 6-core processor
•  Dual SAS 146GB SAS drive operating at 15K RPM
•  48GB DDR 1333MHz RAM

1 Dell C6105 providing 4 compute nodes, each containing:

•  Dual-socket AMD Opteron 4174 2.3GHz 6-core processor
•  250GB SATA drive
• 48GB DDR 1333 MHz RAM

1 Dell C410x GPU chassis

• 16 nVidia M2050 Tesla™ GPGPUs totaling 7,448 cores available across 4 compute nodes

3 Convey HC-1 systems
Interconnect:

•  Mellanox IS5025 Quad Data Rate (QDR) Infiniband switch (40 Gb/s) 36 ports

Storage:

• Panasas PAS7 parallel file system storage with a capacity of 80TB

Login Nodes:

•  Dell PowerEdge R610, 24GB RAM

Web Gateway Node:

•  Dell PowerEdge R710, 32GB RAM, 7TB local storage

Partnership computing system additions and enhancements include:

Compute Nodes:

15 Dell C6100 providing 60 compute nodes total, each node featuring:

• Dual-socket Intel Xeon X5650 2.5GHz 6 core processor
• 250GB SATA drive
• 48GB DDR 1333MHz RAM

2 Dell R910

• Quad-socket Intel Xeon 10 core processor
• 4 1TB SAS 10K RPM SAS drives
• 1TB DDR 1066MHz RAM

Interconnect:

•  Mellanox IS5100 Quad Data Rate (QDR) Infiniband switch (40 Gb/s) 84 ports expandable to 108 ports

Login Nodes:

• Dell R710, 96 GB RAM

Admin Node:

• Dell R710, 48 GB RAM

Contact us for more information about joining the Partnership Supercomputing Program at ccf@vbi.vt.edu.

About VBI’s Computing Core:
VBI Computing Core (CC) provides life sciences researchers access to high-performance computing capabilities and advanced data handling methods. Life sciences and transdisciplinary research is advanced through leading edge technologies closely matched with nimble and custom applications.

Facilities:
VBI computing facilities include three data centers spanning a total of 3700 square feet. *** Current computing resources offer over 2600 processor cores and 10 TB RAM distributed over 250 servers and high performance clusters. Storage capacities include over 1 PB of disk and 3 PB of tape, expandable to 50 PB. Our data centers are also home to a storage area network (SAN) ensuring reliability and high-speed data access. Access is further enhanced through high-speed Gigabit Ethernet connectivity between desktops and our data centers with High-speed paths to the Internet via Network Virginia and Internet2. Solutions developed by the Computing Core at VBI are modular and scalable while maintaining priority focus on data integrity and redundant power/cooling resources.

Computing Core Services

• Dedicated and Shared\Virtual Server Hosting
• High-Performance Computing
• Storage and Backup
• Database Hosting
• Buildup and Support of Unique Information Technology Systems
• Application Development, Maintenance and Deployment
• Comprehensive Data Support
• Enabled Services Supporting Research Collaborations