Research Seminar - November 25, 2004

Apple in the High Performance Computing (HPC) Environment

Time: 12:30-2pm, Thursday 25th November

Computer Science & Software Engineering

Seminar Room 1.24

Speakers:
Stephen Atherton and John Zornig

Abstract:

This seminar gives an overview of HPC on the Apple platform and will be given by Apple's Stephen Atherton and John Zornig.

Apple has recently made some historical breakthroughs in the HPC space. If you are a specialist in the field you would already have heard of Virginia Tech's cluster http://www.apple.com/education/science/profiles/vatech/ that made it into the key Supercomputer metrics listing http://www.top500.org as the 3rd fastest system on the planet (it is currently off the site as they purchased another 1000+ xServe systems to upgrade the system!). This month the Top 500 site is being updated and it is anticipated that a number of Apple clusters will be on the list.

Being UNIX, a large number of HPC tools have been ported to Mac OS X http://www.apple.com/xserve/cluster/resources.html and Apple is currently previewing software technologies that will be important to the area http://www.apple.com.au/xsan/highperformancecomputing.html http://developer.apple.com/hardware/hpc/xgrid_intro.html. Apple's RAID storage, xServe RAID http://www.apple.com.au/xserve/raid/, has changed the pricing structure in the industry and, being certified for multiple platforms, has found itself on systems as diverse as Swinburne's Department Astrophysics's HPC Dell cluster and South Australia Partnership for Advanced Computer's (SAPAC) IBM cluster.

Although more typical in the bioinformatics space http://www.apple.com/science/, Mac OS X based clusters are now being implemented in the physical sciences as well - a U.S. Army contractor recently purchased 1,566 servers for work on SCRAM Jet research http://news.com.com/Apple+sells+supercomputer+sequel/2100-1010_3-5242487.html?/tag=macintouch

This seminar will tell the Apple story and look at the software and hardware involved in the examples given. It is targeted for both the HPC novice and those experienced in the field.

REGISTRATION at http://www.apple.com.au/education/events/ (Registration is free)