SCIENCE

HP announced that Eni S.p.A. of Italy and the University of Hamburg in Germany have chosen HP ProLiant servers to accelerate critical research and discovery in the areas of energy and astrophysics.

HP ProLiant server technology has brought high-performance computing with advanced compute power and energy efficiency to a dramatically wider customer base over the past decade, from small labs to large TOP500 deployments.

According to IDC, HP also has taken the No. 1 position in worldwide server revenue and shipments for high-performance computing for the first quarter of 2011.(1)

Leading enterprises and scientific and education institutions, such as Eni and the University of Hamburg, use HP ProLiant servers as part of an HP Converged Infrastructure to maximize resources across their technology infrastructures. By increasing compute power without increasing system footprint or energy use, the institutions can secure their research results faster and at a lower cost.

Eni expands energy exploration with seismic processing capabilities

As one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies, operating in more than 70 countries, as well as the largest industrial company in Italy, Eni sought to grow its seismic processing capabilities for faster and more effective discovery of petroleum and natural gas.

The company has deployed an HP server cluster of more than 1,000 HP ProLiant SL390 G7 servers with a Mellanox QDR 40 Gb/s InfiniBand interconnect, managed with the HP Cluster Management Utility. The new system allows Eni to expand compute power without the need for additional space or power.

No. 61 on the June 2011 TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the system achieves 131.2 teraflop Linpack Rmax.

“The new HP server infrastructure provides 50 percent more compute power at a lower cost and in the same space as our former system,” said Sergio Zazzera, manager, Technical Scientific Data and Systems Department, Eni S.p.A. “With this configuration, we can now improve the use of new technologies to significantly reduce the time required to find and produce new sources of oil and gas.”

University of Hamburg accelerates astrophysics and climate research

One of the largest universities in Germany, the University of Hamburg chose HP to help further astrophysics and climate research at its Regional Computing Center.

To increase the speed of its high-performance computing system, the university implemented a cluster of eight HP ProLiant SL390 G7 2U servers in two HP ProLiant SL6500 chassis. Each server includes three integrated NVIDIA Tesla M2070Q GPUs, taking advantage of the maximum modularity and expanded internal bandwidth of the HP ProLiant SL390 servers for three-dimensional visualization and parallel processing.

“After a thorough evaluation, we concluded that the HP ProLiant SL390 G7 servers with NVIDIA accelerators would be the best platform to port and tune complex applications for multicore and GPU-enabled systems,” said Prof. Dr. Stephan Olbrich, director, Regional Computing Center, University of Hamburg. “With the HP ProLiant SL390 G7 servers equipped with NVIDIA’s new M2070Q GPUs, we can significantly speed up advanced codes to make new discoveries in the areas of astrophysics and climate research.”