ACADEMIA
Bull to deliver state-of-the-art HPC capability for new MTC innovation centre
Bull Information Systems has been awarded an important contract by the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) to deliver and implement state-of-the-art high performance computing (HPC) equipment and provide associated consultancy and support.
The MTC is a non-profit distributing research and technology organization focused on transferring knowledge to industrial companies and their supply chains in order to help drive the UK's manufacturing competitiveness.
MTC has acquired a HPC facility designed to help develop a comprehensive capability in manufacturing simulation. To support this new focus, MTC needed a partner and provider capable of providing direct access to the component (hardware and software) HPC technology and possessing associated skills in deploying and developing it.
Dr Clive Hickman, CEO, MTC, commented on the appointment of Bull: "not only did Bull have the HPC knowledge and expertise we were looking for but they demonstrated attention to detail, quality of solution and flexibility to satisfy our needs at all stages. We look forward to working with Bull and to them delivering a solution that not only meets our needs today but also for the future."
Andrew Carr, sales and marketing director, Bull UK & Ireland commented, "MTC was working to very tight timescales for this project and needed to demonstrate value-for-money from its investments. As such, our commitment to deliver the very latest high performance "Sandy Bridge" processor technology within the required timeframe we considered was a key differentiator."
Bull is currently in the process of implementing its HPC solution for MTC.
The main features of the hardware include:
• More than 30 compute nodes, each with 2x Intel Xeon E5-2670 processors (8 cores, 2.60GHz, 8.00GT/s, 20MB);
• 4GB 1600MHz memory per core plus two nodes with 8GB/core (total 2.43TB);
• One 'fat' node for pre- and post-processing work;
• 100TB usable RAID6 storage;
• Linux 64-bit operating system.
Yet, the benefits for MTC of Bull's work on this project extend far beyond the implementation of the equipment itself.
Hickman concludes, " MTC is new to the field of high performance computing and Bull's on-going advice, coupled with that of our other members in this arena, will be invaluable in assisting MTC to make the correct long term decisions for its HPC strategy."
