Supercomputers

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  In 1981, the University of Minnesota was the first American university to acquire a supercomputer (a Cray-1B). The Supercomputing Institute was created in 1984 to provide leading-edge, high-performance computing resources to the University of Minnesotašs research community. From its inception through mid-1998, the supercomputing resources offered to the University of Minnesota research community have included a Cray-2, an ETA 10, a Cray X-MP, an IBM 3090, a Cray M90, a Cray T3D, a twelve-processor Cray C90, and a Cray T3E-900.

  The Supercomputing Institute has continued the strong tradition of providing University of Minnesota researchers with leading-edge, high-performance computing technologies and diversified programs that complement these technologies. In May of 1998, the Institute began offering its researchers access to a 256-processor IBM SP Silvernode supercomputer with 192 GB of memory. This IBM SP supercomputer was a 64-node machine with four 332 MHz 604e processors and 3 GB of memory on each node.

  In May 1999, the Institute upgraded the IBM SP by acquiring 80 WinterHawk nodes. Each of the WinterHawk nodes contained two 200 MHz Power3 processors sharing 1 GB of memory for a total of 160 WinterHawk processors. In November 1999, 17 NightHawk nodes were added to the WinterHawk nodes.

  In April 2000, the WinterHawk nodes were upgraded to WinterHawk+ technology. The Institutešs IBM SP supercomputer currently comprises 390 processors with 663 GB of memory. It consists of 79 four-processor and 3 two-processor WinterHawk+ nodes with 391 GB of memory and 17 four-processor NightHawk nodes with 272 GB of memory. The NightHawk nodes utilize the 222 MHz Power3 processors and WinterHawk+ nodes utilize the 375 MHz Power3+ processor. In addition, the Institute has a 16-processor Silvernode IBM SP with 12 GB of memory. The Silvernode SP utilizes the 332 MHz PowerPC 604e processor. The IBM supercomputer resources are available in coordination with the IBM Shared University Research (SUR) partnership.

  In May 2001, the Supercomputing Institute installed two 96-processor SGI Origin 3800s. Each SGI Origin 3800 has 144 GB of memory. These supercomputers utilize 500 MHz R14000 processors.

  The total amount of disk available to users of the IBM SP systems is 3.5 Terabytes. The total amount of disk available to users of the SGI Origin 2000 systems is currently 2.0 Terabytes.

  The supercomputing resources are currently located at the Supercomputing Institutešs facilities in the Minnesota Technology Corridor at the edge of the West Bank of the Minneapolis Campus of the University. In Winter 2002, the Institute will be relocating to the newly renovated Walter Library Digital Technology Center on the East Bank Mall of the Minneapolis Campus.

  These IBM and SGI supercomputers offer the Supercomputing Institutešs researchers access to state-of-the-art, high-performance computing technology. In addition, the Supercomputing Institute is continuing its commitment to a diversified array of computing laboratories, collaborations, and programs. These include the Basic Sciences Computing Laboratory, the Scientific Development and Visualization Laboratory, the Medicinal Chemistry-Supercomputing Institute Visualization/ Workstation Laboratory, and interdisciplinary Ph.D. programs in Scientific Computing and Computational Neuroscience.

This information is available in alternative formats upon request by individuals with disabilities. Please send email to alt-format@msi.umn.edu or call 612-624-0528.