/. The Space Simulator Cluster

[Eugen Leitl]

http://space-simulator.lanl.gov/

The Space Simulator is a 294-processor Beowulf cluster. It is based on the 
Shuttle XPC SS51G mini chassis, which uses a heat pipe instead of a CPU 
fan. The small size of the XPC cases allowed us to fit the cluster in 
about half the space of the previous 144-processor Avalon cluster. Each 
node consists of a 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 1 Gb of 333 MHz DDR 
SDRAM, an 80 Gbyte Maxtor hard drive, and a 3Com 3C996B-T gigabit ethernet 
card. The cost of an individual node was less than $1000. The network 
switch is composed of a Foundry FastIron 1500 switch trunked to another 
FastIron 800 switch, which provides a total of 304 Gigabit Ethernet ports 
using the 16-port JetCore modules.

The system was delivered in late September, 2002. It achieved Linpack 
performance of 665.1 Gflops on 288 processors in October 2002, making it 
the 85th fastest computer in the world according to the TOP500 list.

The Space Simulator Cluster is dedicated to performing computational 
astrophysics simulations in the Theoretical Astrophysics group (T-6) at 
Los Alamos National Laboratory. It is a follow-on to the Loki and Avalon 
clusters.

Michael S. Warren, mswarren at lanl.gov

Chris Fryer, fryer at lanl.gov

M. Patrick Goda, pgoda at lanl.gov

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Last modified: November 15, 2002