High-performance computing (HPC) initiative Petroleo Brasileiro (BR) Network was created to handle computer simulations to aid oil production in Brazil's pre-salt basin. An HPC grid was required to handle the complex project with the goal being a high-performance, affordable solution that could expand easily over the next few years. Sun, IBM, Dell, Bull, SGI, and HP were consulted. After an extensive review process, the group decided that Sun would best meet its goals for performance, scalability, energy efficiency, and cost, the latter of which was 30% less than an offering from the closest competing vendor.

"Sun provided the best solution in terms of meeting the technical requirements together with the lowest price - it’s as simple as that," said Alvaro Coutinho, professor at the Center for Parallel Computing and the Department of Civil Engineering at Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute-Graduate School and Research in Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (COPPE/UFRJ), which works with Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras on HPC projects. The BR Network is funded by Petrobras.

Sun's HPC solution includes 448 Sun Blade X6275 Server Modules with the new Intel Xeon processor series 5500, Sun Blade 6048 Modular Systems, and the Lustre file system. The solution features the first blade server with on-board QDR InfiniBand for high performance and low latency. The HPC grid BR Network is managed by an alliance of five federal universities that run the Red Hat Linux operating system on a Sun open-network solution that supports multiple operating systems, including the Solaris OS and Windows. Sun Professional Services is also providing ongoing support for the project's air-conditioning and hi-visualization environments.

Installed in June 2009, the BR Network currently includes three universities: the University of Sao Paulo, the Federal University of Alagoas, and the Alberto Luiz Coimbra Institute-Graduate School and Research in Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The grid provides approximately 100 teraflops of peak performance and 21.5 TB of memory. The alliance is currently running benchmark tests to submit to the Top500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. When the tests are complete, the universities will deploy custom software on the BR Network and prepare for production. The alliance expects that the BR Network will be fully operational by February 2010.

"We are very excited about the scalability of our Sun HPC system," said Coutinho. "The idea when we submitted the RFP (Request For Proposal) was for the solution to be expandable to hundreds of teraflops. We are currently at about 100 teraflops, and we are thinking of doubling or even tripling it in the next two years."

More Information

Customer Snapshot: BR Network

Sun Blade X6275 Server Modules

Sun Blade 6048 Modular System

Lustre File System

Sun Professional Services [...read more...]

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