RCC's data-intensive high performance computer, FlashLite, has set two world records to become the world’s most powerful shared memory server.
The ARC-funded FlashLite was installed in Springfield’s Polaris Data Centre in August last year and is available for use to Australian researchers, including those at UQ.
FlashLite has taken the top position on the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation’s CPU benchmark results (SPEC), beating previous top position SGI UV systems by as much as 29 per cent. FlashLite also came third on the STREAM benchmark, trailing only two systems, which have double the processor count.
RCC designed Flashlite and XENON Systems built and installed it at the Polaris Data Centre, while ScaleMP’s vSMP Foundation powers the supercomputer.
“We are extremely satisfied to have set two world records,” said RCC Director Prof David Abramson.
“These benchmarks measure the computational power and the speed of accessing memory respectively. FlashLite was designed for data-intensive science, but it’s great to see it achieving outstanding computational performance at the same time. This makes it ideal for demanding Big Data problems such as those found in Life Sciences, Physics, Chemistry, Geo-Science and even Social Science.”
Shai Fultheim, ScaleMP’s CEO and founder, said, “With the FlashLite system, the University has proven that one can indeed use commodity components to create the world’s fastest shared memory computer, and we look forward to further collaboration with Queensland scientists in varying fields of research, to help them get the most out of their modeling, simulation, and analysis of the universe we live in.”
“These fantastic world records confirm the capabilities of this machine, and XENON’s integration of vSMP Foundation makes it easy to partition and reconfigure the system as needed by the researchers,” said Dragan Dimitrovici, founder and CEO of XENON Systems.
* SPEC benchmarks were executed by ScaleMP, Inc., between 12–14 January 2016. Comparisons are according to the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation’s CPU 2006 benchmark results, published by SPEC on 17 February 2016.
Please note: This story was also mentioned in the following publications:
