University of California Irvine gets 45% more research done with Dell and Intel HPC cluster • HPC “ The Intel Xeon 5600 series processors have enabled us to work with a 33 percent increase in speed and a 45 percent increase in the amount of data that we can acquire and maintain. The partnership between Dell and Intel has allowed us to speed up our processes in the way that we deploy our software codes.” Ronald D. Hubbard, Executive Director, GreenPlanet HPCC, School of Physical Sciences, University of California Irvine Customer Profile Company: University of California Irvine Industry: Education Country: United States Students: 34,000 Faculty: 2,685 Web: www.UCIrvine.edu Benefits Business Need • 45% more research done than University of California Irvine (UC Irvine) School of Physical Sciences with previous solutions needed its own high-performance computing (HPC) cluster to provide • 33% increase in performance its 27 research professors and their teams control over their own compared with previous solutions destiny. Previously researchers handed out their data to HPC centers • 24x7 access to data for researchers for analysis and did not have 24x7 access to it. • 10 federal grants won out of Solution 11 grant applications The university worked with Dell and Intel to help design and build an • 28% energy savings in-house HPC solution using Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers with Intel® • 23% space savings Xeon® processors, Dell PowerVault™ MD1000 direct attached storage arrays and QLogic TrueScale InfiniBand interconnect. When Former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change, he shared the prize with 34 researchers on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, 11 of whom do their research at the University of California Irvine (UC Irvine), School of Physical Sciences. Three other researchers have received the Nobel Prize during their tenure at UC Irvine: Frank Sherwood Rowland (Chemistry, 1995), Frederick Reines (Physics, 1995) and Irwin Rose (Chemistry, 2004). One of the 10 universities in the who committed themselves to high- University of California system, UC performance computing at UC Irvine. Irvine prides itself on its distinguished They put us in a position where we “ When I started my history of scientific research. could get their advanced tools and their advanced products—not necessarily Yet until a few years ago, UC Irvine research, I was off-the-shelf products—by opening did not have sufficient homegrown their engineering and design-build very happy to be to compute power to support its award- processes to us and ultimately allowing winning Nobel groups or its young and us to do work that we couldn’t have be doing cutting- innovative researchers in such areas as done without their help.” edge research atmospheric chemistry, bioinformatics, biopharmaceutical engineering and UC Irvine’s HPC solution, GreenPlanet, by simulating other disciplines that focus on chemistry started with 88 Dell PowerEdge 1950 and synthetic chemistry. Its researchers servers and 14 PowerEdge 2950 servers approximately 800 had to outsource their data to high- with Intel Xeon processors. QLogic atoms. And now performance computing (HPC) labs TrueScale InfiniBand interconnect, such as the Fermi Lab in Chicago, sourced through Dell, provided high with GreenPlanet the National Center for Atmospheric thoughput, low latency connectivity Research in Boulder, Colorado, the among the nodes. Dell PowerVault we’re doing Stanford Linear Accelerator Center MD1000 direct attached storage arrays routinely a quarter in Menlo Park, California and the delivered rack-dense, scalable storage. San Diego Supercomputer Center. of a million atoms, “Our researchers were not in charge Technology at Work and for two or three of their own destiny. They needed to be able to access their own data on an Services orders of magnitude hourly basis, and they needed compute Dell™ Hardware Customization longer in time.” power that would speed up the pace Services of research,” says Ronald D. Hubbard, ® Douglas Tobias, executive director, GreenPlanet HPCC, Intel Cluster Ready Program Professor of Chemistry, School of Physical Sciences, UC Irvine. University of California Irvine Hubbard was also recently named a Hardware 2010 laureate by the ComputerWorld Dell PowerEdge™ C6100 servers Honors program for his work on a case with Intel® Xeon® 5600 series study outlining collaboration between processors UC Irvine’s dark particle physicists and Dell PowerEdge C1100 servers Intel Corp. with Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors Seeking partners in progress Dell PowerEdge R710, R610 and Each of the large research groups at R410 servers with Intel Xeon 5500 UC Irvine got together with Hubbard, and 5600 series processors and they decided that UC Irvine needed an HPC solution. “We put together Dell PowerEdge 2950 and 1950 a plan and we decided that the only servers with Intel Xeon processors way we could make it work was by Dell PowerVault™ MD1000 direct having partners in progress, not just attached storage arrays vendors,” says Hubbard. “Dell and Intel QLogic TrueScale InfiniBand rose to the challenge through their interconnect CEOs, Michael Dell and Craig Barrett, Tapping federal grants increase in speed and a 45 percent With the infrastructure in place, federal increase in the amount of data that money followed. we can acquire and maintain. The partnership between Dell and Intel has “Due to our activity in the science definitely allowed us the opportunity community with the National Science to speed up our processes in the way Foundation, the National Institutes that we deploy our software codes.” of Health, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense and NASA, The Dell and Intel solution also saves we’ve applied for and received grants 28 percent in energy consumption and to expand GreenPlanet over these 23 percent in space. past 17 months from 102 nodes to “Anytime a university like ours is looking 327 servers,” says Hubbard. “We applied for new partnerships, we’re looking for for 11 grants and got 10.” a lot of ingredients. And what Dell has UC Irvine’s federal grants span a wide been able to bring through their partners spectrum of scientific activities. A $20 are the roadmaps and the highways to million grant for UC Irvine’s Chemistry do more dense and scalable research at the Space Time Limit (CASTL) project, computing. Without that GreenPlanet will enable researchers to look at would not be a reality, and without that “ We study systems photographs of chemical reactions GreenPlanet wouldn’t be productive. within cells for the very first time using And it’s through the Dell process and with hundreds of high resolution video images. Other the process of their partners that we’ve thousands of atoms projects on the macro-end of the been able to be so successful in a very spectrum will gather data about the short period of time. GreenPlanet and simulate their deepest novas in the universe. was designed to be an enabler of new discoveries. In order to make that behavior. So, it’s “In between, we have really strong design work, it takes a lot of people, a staples of atmospheric chemistry, very important for lot of process and a lot of production. coupled with synthetic organic Dell and Intel, more specifically, have chemistry, as well as pharmaceutical us to have access been partners that have allowed all chemistry and a great deal of climate that to happen.” to a large number and weather modeling that takes place from the 30,000-mile level Simplifying acquisition and of processors that via satellite right down to the ground deployment level on a minute-by-minute basis,” have very fast In addition to opening up its design says Hubbard. and build processes to enable UC interconnect. And 33% increase in speed Irvine to obtain the advanced tools the great thing that it needed to do more science The 327 servers in the expanded cluster in less time, Dell worked with Intel include Dell PowerEdge R710, R610 about GreenPlanet to bring UC Irvine into Intel’s Cluster and R410s servers with Intel Xeon 5500 Ready Program. Intel Cluster Ready is it satisfies those and 5600 series processors. “Currently, certification includes comprehensive we are procuring Dell PowerEdge constraints for us.” testing and integration work, enabling C6100 and C1100 servers purpose- Dell HPC clusters with Intel Cluster Rommie Amaro, made by Dell with Intel Xeon 5600 series Ready certification to simplify Assistant Professor of processors, Intel’s newest and most acquisition and deployment. Pharmaceutical Science and advanced processors,” says Hubbard. Computer Science, UC Irvine also took advantage of School of Physical Sciences, With four two-socket server nodes in a the Dell Hardware Customization University of California Irvine 2U rack chassis, the PowerEdge C6100 is service that integrates hardware, a hyper-scale-inspired building block for images, applications, peripherals and HPC environments and cloud builders. documents with systems as they’re “Through the efforts of Dell and Intel, being built. we’ve been able to accelerate our “With the integration that Dell does and activities plus we’re seeing great energy getting the product preassembled and savings and space savings in being able put into our cluster, we have become to do a greater amount of work in the more efficient and proficient in the same footprint,” says Hubbard. “In fact, way we monitor and manage on a daily we’re able to do a lot more work than basis,” says Hubbard. “GreenPlanet HPC we ever thought we could because of is powered by Linux. We run multiple the advancements that Dell has made applications. We run very diverse in their Cloud 6100 series servers. The software codes across 27 different Intel Xeon 5600 series processors have professors and their research groups. enabled us to work with a 33 percent And inside all these research groups This opens up the landscape of the are divergent codes that take weeks or type of questions that you can ask.