Sun Customer Ready HPC Cluster: Reference Configurations with Sun Fire X2200 M2 and X2100 M2 Servers

The reference configurations described in this blueprint are starting points for building Sun Customer Ready HPC Clusters configured with Sun Fire X2100 M2 and X2200 M2 servers. The configurations define how Sun Systems Group products can be configured in a typical grid rack deployment. This document describes configurations in detail using Sun Fire X2100 M2 and X2200 M2 servers with a Gigabit Ethernet data fabric, as well as configurations using Sun Fire X2200 M2 servers with a high-speed InfiniBand fabric. These configurations focus on single rack solutions, with external connections through uplink ports of the switches. These reference configurations have been architected using Sun's expertise gained in actual, real-world installations. Within certain constraints, as described in the later sections, the system can be tailored to the customer needs. Certain system components described in this document are only available through Sun's factory integration. Although the information contained here could be used during an integration on-site, the optimal benefit is achieved through Sun Customer Ready System integration.

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Hadoop - A Primer

Hadoop is a distributed computing platform written in Java. It incorporates features similar to those of the Google File System and of MapReduce to process vast amounts of data "Hadoop is a Free Java software framework that supports data intensive distributed applications running on large clusters of commodity computers. It enables applications to easily scale out to thousands of nodes and petabytes of data" (Wikipedia) * What platform does Hadoop run on? * Java 1.5.x or higher, preferably from Sun * Linux * Windows for development * Solaris

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Sun N1 Grid Engine Software and the Tokyo Institute of Technology Super Computer Grid

One of the world's leading technical institutes, the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) created the fastest supercomputer in Asia, and one of the largest outside of the United States. Using Sun x64 servers and data servers deployed in a grid architecture, Tokyo Tech built a cost-effective, flexible supercomputer that meets the demands of compute- and data-intensive applications. Built in just 35 days, the TSUBAME grid includes hundreds of systems incorporating thousands of processor cores and terabytes of memory, and delivers 47.38 trillion1 floating-point operations per second (TeraFLOPS) of sustained LINPACK benchmark performance and 1.1 petabyte of storage to users running common off-the-shelf applications. Based on the deployment architecture, the grid is expected to reach 100 TeraFLOPS in the future. This Sun BluePrints article provides an overview of the Tokyo Tech grid, named TSUBAME. The third in a series of Sun BluePrints articles on the TSUBAME grid, this document provides an overview of the overall system architecture of the grid, as well as a detailed look at the configuration of the Sun N1 Grid Engine software that makes the grid accessible to users.

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Implementing the Lustre File System with Sun Storage: High Performance Storage for High Performance Computing

Much of the focus of high performance computing (HPC) has centered on CPU performance. However, as computing requirements grow, HPC clusters are demanding higher rates of aggregate data throughput. Today's clusters feature larger numbers of nodes with increased compute speeds. The higher clock rates and operations per clock cycle create increased demand for local data on each node. In addition, InfiniBand and other high-speed, low-latency interconnects increase the data throughput available to each node. Traditional shared file systems such as NFS have not been able to scale to meet this growing demand for data throughput on HPC clusters. Scalable cluster file systems that can provide parallel data access to hundreds of nodes and petabytes of storage are needed to provide the high data throughput required by large HPC applications, including manufacturing, electronic design, and research. This paper describes an implementation of the Sun Lustre file system as a scalable storage cluster using Sun Fire servers, high-speed/low-latency InfiniBand interconnects, and additional networking and storage devices. Furthermore, this paper explores the use of the Sun Lustre file system at a shared government and education research site, including configuration information and details on testing that was performed on-site to evaluate the performance of Sun's scalable storage solution.

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Sun Storage and Archive Solution for HPC

When designing data storage solutions for High Performance Computing (HPC) environments, IT architects strive to balance complex and often conflicting requirements. The need to manage a skyrocketing amount of data, along with the goals of controlling cost and immediate data availability, can make it difficult to meet HPC application demands within the constraints of today's IT budgets. To help customers address an almost bewildering set of architectural challenges, Sun has developed the Sun Storage and Archive Solution for HPC, a reference architecture that can be easily customized to meet specific application goals and business requirements. This article is intended for IT managers and storage architects familiar with HPC applications and data requirements in the organization. It assumes that the audience has a technical background and some familiarity with issues surrounding the task of configuring systems and storage.

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