At the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) held this past week in Dresden, Germany, Sun announced it is expanding its Sun Blade and Sun Constellation System families for the HPC market as well as adding a new Storage and Archive solution for HPC and updated software and development tools that simplify HPC cluster installation and management. Sun's HPC portfolio of products and solutions is aimed at enabling mainstream HPC customers across all industries.

Sun Blade X6450 Server Module

This newest Sun Blade x64 system is a new four socket blade server that delivers 50 percent more memory and up to 71 percent greater density than competitive blades. Powered by four high-performance dual-or-quad core Intel Xeon processor 7300 series, this newest Sun Constellation System blade module is compatible with Solaris, Linux, Windows and VMware so customers are capable of running existing 32-bit applications as well as 64-bit ones.

When integrated into the Sun Constellation System, the Sun Blade X6450 is the densest four socket blade server available. Reporting from the conference, Sun's Josh Simons explains that this server module fits into the Sun Blade 6048 Chassis, which is considered the computational heart of Sun's Constellation System architecture for HPC. Blade Product Line Manager Lisa Robinson Schoeller identifies the most notable features as its 50 percent increase in DIMM slots per socket (six instead of the usual four), the achievable compute density at the chassis level (71 percent increase over IBM and 50 percent increase over HP), and the fact that it is diskless (though it does also support a 16 GB on-board CF card that could be used for local booting.) It delivers more than seven TFlops of peak performance per fully populated Sun Blade 6048 chassis.

Available now, entry-level pricing for the Sun Blade X6450 server module begins at $8,655. It qualifies under Sun\'s Try and Buy program so customers can test drive the system risk-free for 60 days.

Sun Constellation System Family

New additions to this family portfolio include the above mentioned Sun Blade X6450 server module and the Sun Datacenter Switch 3x24. This new switch, which is a smaller version of the Sun Datacenter Switch 3456, features 72 DDR 4X Infiniband ports. Visit Simons\' blog for photos of its unveiling.

In combination, these two new additions to the Sun Constellation System family allow customers to build mid-size clusters using the same architecture as that deployed at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). Customers are able to scale from a single rack at approximately 7 TFlops to over 2 PFlops within the same, compatible architecture for the deployment of a scalable high-performance cluster in any datacenter.

Other Sun HPC-related Products and Solutions

Lustre File System

This open source solution allows easy aggregation of tens of thousands of cluster nodes and petabytes of storage into one file system. Lustre can achieve more than 90 percent of raw bandwidth I/O and can help customers save at least 20 percent in hardware costs while achieving the same I/O goal.

Sun Storage and Archive Solution for HPC

Based on the Sun StorageTek Storage Archive Manager (SAM) and Sun StorageTek QFS shared file system software infrastructure, this solution provides a comprehensive environment that balances high-performance access with more economical bulk storage in a single integrated architecture. It can increase computational power by up to 23 percent by allowing customers to re-invest savings made in the compute component of their cluster and reduce power consumption by up to 24 percent.

Solaris ZFS File System

Performance and integrated volume management capabilities are an integral component in OpenSolaris. Solaris ZFS delivers maximum data integrity and can reduce downtime by more than 50 percent.

Sun HPC Software, Linux Edition 1.0

Speeds cluster deployment times by up to 10x by avoiding extensive software integration and testing, writing custom scripts and complicated deployment to compute nodes.

Sun xVM Ops Center 1.1

Supports a multitude of RedHat and SuSE Linux variants along with Solaris in one unified solution to allow for updates and monitoring of different OS environments using one system.

Sun Visualization Software 1.1

Key for analyzing complex data rapidly, this software combines both Sun Scalable Visualization software and Sun Shared Visualization software with NVIDIA graphics solutions, Sun systems, networking and interconnect. Scales across Sun systems to support immersive environments and remote visualization.

Solaris HPC Developer Preview

Integrates Sun HPC Cluster Tools (for Open MPI), Sun Grid Engine (for application workload management) and Sun Studio software (for application development). It enables rapid development and optimization of HPC applications and then seamlessly allows the software to be deployed in a parallel environment.

Sun HPC Cluster Tools 8.0

Provides developers with the tools to create and tune Message-passing Interface (MPI) applications that run on high performance clusters and SMPs. It offers parallel application performance analysis and optimization by incorporating VampirTrace and MPI PERUSE.

Sun Grid Engine 6.2

Enhances scalability by supporting larger grids and offers finer grain control required by interdependent workloads and provides the ability to move resources from grid to grid in multi-cluster HPC environments. Release expected August 2008.

Sun Single Point of Contact API Managed Service

New to Sun's HPC service offerings, this solution aims to assist customers manage their third party support contracts such as, Voltaire, Force 10 and Nortel in their HPC environments. With this new service Sun takes on the responsibility for executing the service contract and resolving issues quickly and efficiently.

"Sun stands apart in the HPC market as the only vendor able to deliver a complete HPC 'system' based on open, innovative technologies - from compute and storage to networking, software and services," said John Fowler, executive vice president, Systems Group, Sun. "We offer customers turnkey HPC cluster solutions built on a foundation of design excellence and a portfolio of industry standard components that addresses the needs of commercial customers of all sizes on up to the largest research institutions."

Get more information on Sun's HPC open source software and development tools, including integrated stack and management software, HPC storage software, visualization software and more.

Also, visit Sun\'s ISC 2008 media kit page for access to datasheets, whitepapers and other highlights on a few aforementioned products. [...read more...]

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