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High Performance Computing Lab
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HPC systems are IT infrastructures for
extensive applications, which complexity can only handled by combined
high-performance computers. High performance computing is used e.g. for
fluid mechanics, particle physics, genetics, meteorology and quantum
chemistry. Problems from non-technical fields like logistics, 
financial management or sports science are
also based on complex models. Respectively essential are substantial
calculations and simulations. With the installation of the
high-performance computing system at the institute of business
informatics the cornerstone was placed to do research with scientific
background on this sector.
Focused are questions concerning cost-efficient and customer-oriented software- and hardware structures, communications middleware (grid computing), as well as data management systems. To gain experience with configuring and driving a high-performance computing system, an experimental HPC-lab was set up next to the computer cluster.
Usual software and components to implement the systems were used sensible to avoid the integration of expensive special hardware. The experimental cluster contains a total amount of 65 servers, thereof are 50 computer nodes and 15 infrastructure servers. Such a configuration allows a great range to research and teachings. In future the cluster system should act as part of a worldwide interconnected computer system.
Main research focuses
- Development of grid- and cluster based business models for business informatics and logistic purposes
- Development and evaluation of grid- and software oriented application architectures
- Dynamic and static partial-specialized algorithms of generative programming
- Development of process models for introduction and establishment of grid-applications in industry and research
- Usability of grid-applications: User Interfaces Grid Computing
Problem solving fields
- Service oriented architectures (SOA) and infrastructures (SOI)
- Grid computing
- Parallel software architectures and algorithms
- Virtualization
- Performance-analysis
- Visualization
Configuration and infrastructure
A high level of communication and information technology ensures the scientific work of the LSB-Team. The upgrade and advancement of computer-aided IT-services unfold as an important instrument to the realization of successful projects in research and teachings.
Central objective of the HPC-lab is the creation of a flexible and solid IT-infrastructure to effective utilizes the wide spectrum of applications and to effective handles the significant demands placed on the utilization. Besides the securing of adequate capacities a high quality, central administration and security of services must be guaranteed.
Therefore considerably security measures were arranged like the compulsive use of anti-virus software, a powerful uninterrupted power supply unit and a firewall solution, which filters the whole in- and outgoing data stream and initiates countermeasures if necessary.
Each staff member gets a central user
account which enables access to both a private e-mail account on the
central exchange server and the service portal. The modern
communication technology is also used to virtual communicate with
distant research partners via video- and data conferences.
The institute for business informatics runs a compute cluster server with high processing- and storage power, which is used in a laboratory by staff members and students. Virtualization techniques and modern storage systems simplify the high availability and flexibility during development and use of application systems. The central backup and archive service serves staff members of the LSB-team for backup and archive data from mobile devices and local PCs or servers. The user gains access to the network via LAN or WLAN and from beyond via VPN. The WLAN enables staff members to flexible access own network based resources, the online-services of the LSB-project and the internet.
Applications
Many important applications from research and development support Windows CCS 2003 / HPC Pack 2008. For this purpose applications ranging from computer-aided engineering to solutions for development of business applications were included. Selected software systems are tested.
Examples are:
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Wolfram gridMathematica 2.1
-
Microsoft Excel Services/ Sharepoint 2007
- FLUENT 6.3 by ANSYS, Inc.
- LS-DYNA® by LSTC,
- STAR-CD by CD-adapco,
- Radioss by Mecalog,
- ABAQUS by ABAQUS, Inc.,
- ANSYS 11,
- MD NASTRAN by MSC Software,
- I iNquiry by The BioTeam,
- LSF by Platform Computing
- ESI PAM-CRASH by ESI Group,
Benchmark
- Linpack with Intel Math Kernel Library 10
- Ansys Fluent Benchmark
Contact
Interested people feel free to contact Prof. Dr. –Ing. Bogdan Franczyk.
Tel.: +49 (0) 341 / 97 - 33 711
Fax: +49 (0) 341 / 97 - 33 729
e-mail: franczyk@wifa.uni-leipzig.de
