The takeaway
Supercomputer deals are like a constant race between vendors; every lap has a new leader. This time Dell steps ahead, with the first supercomputer to run the new InfiniBand 200 gigabit per second network.
The details
The University of Michigan has selected Dell EMC as lead vendor to supply its new $4.8 million Great Lakes computing cluster. Named “Great Lakes,” the new supercomputer will be available for campus use in a few months, after installation and testing are finished.
Inside Great Lakes, the new University of Michigan supercomputer. (Source: UM)
Great Lakes will be the first cluster in the world to use the Mellanox HDR 200 gigabit per second InfiniBand networking solution, enabling faster data transfer speeds and increased application performance. Dell EMC partners on the project are Mellanox Technologies (networking solutions) and DDN (storage hardware).
The main components of the new cluster are:
- Dell EMC PowerEdge C6420 compute nodes, PowerEdge R640 high memory nodes, and PowerEdge R740 GPU nodes
- Mellanox HDR 200Gb/s InfiniBand ConnectX-6 adapters, Quantum switches and LinkX cables, and InfiniBand gateway platforms
- DDN Gridscaler 14kx and 100 TB of usable IME (Infinite Memory Engine) memory
Compared to Flux, the current UM supercomputer, Great Lakes will provide significant performance improvements. Each compute node will have more cores, higher maximum speed capabilities, and increased memory. The cluster will also have improved internet connectivity and file system performance, as well as NVIDIA Tensor GPU cores, designed to provide machine learning applications.
Moving Great Lakes to its new home on The University of Michigan campus.