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Voltaire today announced that the Clemson University Computational Center for Mobility Systems (CU-CCMS) has selected Voltaire Grid Director™ InfiniBand switches and 10 Gigabit Ethernet gateways for a high performance computing system based on products from Sun Microsystems. CU-CCMS is a new world-class computational center dedicated to the automotive and transportation industries located at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR).

The 35 teraflop system provides a massive high performance computing infrastructure to address design, development and research issues for leading automotive and general mobility manufacturers worldwide. Computational simulations that previously required many weeks of processor time are now completed within hours, saving time and costs. In one study with an automotive supplier, CU-CCMS researchers reduced turnaround time for new product simulation by over 80 percent. In another case, prototype development that would have required 12 weeks was replaced with a simulation that requires less than 3 weeks — a 75 percent reduction in the time required from concept to results.

“We are pleased to partner with Voltaire on this innovative facility that marries research with industry and selected them based on their expertise at providing solutions to the research and development organizations at many of the world’s leading automotive companies,” said James H. Leylek, Ph.D, CU-CCMS executive director. “We’re extremely impressed with the quality and performance of the Voltaire switches. They have been an important factor in the success of our mission to serve the automotive, aviation, and energy industries.”

The factory-integrated Sun HPC system consists of 43 Sun Blade™ 6000 Modular Systems with Sun Blade X6250 server modules, in addition to Sun Fire™ servers, Sun SPARC Enterprise® servers and Sun StorageTek™ systems — all interconnected with a high-performance, low latency 20 Gb/s InfiniBand fabric from Voltaire. Voltaire’s Grid Director™ 2012 and Grid Director™ 9024D switches provide all of the server and external blade connectivity and Voltaire’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet gateways provide high-performance connectivity between the server fabric and the storage systems. By seamlessly connecting the servers and storage with 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 20 Gb/s InfiniBand throughput, the Voltaire unified fabric accelerates performance of the many CAE applications running on the system.

“We’re very pleased to deliver CU-CCMS a solution that provides the performance and scalability that the researchers and businesses need to solve complex design problems,” said Cheryl Martin, senior director of HPC marketing, Sun Microsystems. “The Sun Blade system together with Voltaire’s 20 Gb/s InfiniBand delivers a powerful, high performance and scalable solution that helps solve the computing challenges faced by major manufacturing companies.”

“CU-CCMS gives automotive and transportation manufacturers access to a state-of-the-art computing solution that helps them to reduce design cycle time and product costs, while also providing a place to test new concepts and innovations,” said Asaf Somekh, vice president of marketing, Voltaire. “Many of the world’s most popular automotive brands already use Voltaire InfiniBand as part of their design processes and we are pleased to continue our leadership in this market through this exciting initiative with CU-CCMS.”

Solution Showcase at SAE World Congress

Voltaire and CU-CCMS will highlight the computational center’s high-performance simulation capabilities in booth 530 at SAE World Congress, April 20-23 at the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan.