Blue Waters
{{About|the supercomputer}}
{{short description|Supercomputer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, United States}}
{{update|date=June 2023}}
{{Coord|40.095391|-88.242043|display=title}}
{{Infobox custom computer
| Image = 300px
| Caption = The National Petascale Computing Facility, home of Blue Waters
| Dates =
| Operators = Cray Inc.
| Sponsors = US NSF and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
| Location = University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
| Architecture = 49,000 AMD CPUs
237 Cray XE6 cabinets
44 Cray XK7 cabinets
| Memory = 1.5 PB
| Storage = 26.5 PB, 1.1 TB/s Sonexion storage array
| Speed = 13.3 PetaFLOPS
| OS = Cray Linux Environment
| Purpose = Scientific research
| Website = {{URL|https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu}}
}}
Blue Waters was a petascale supercomputer operated by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. On August 8, 2007, the National Science Board approved a resolution which authorized the National Science Foundation to fund "the acquisition and deployment of the world's most powerful leadership-class supercomputer." The NSF awarded $208 million for the Blue Waters project.
On August 8, 2011, NCSA announced that IBM had terminated its contract to provide hardware for the project, and would refund payments to date.{{cite news |url=http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2011-08-08/ibm_bails_on_blue_waters_supercomputer.html |title=IBM Bails on Blue Waters Supercomputer |first=Michael |last=Feldman |work=HPCWire |date=August 8, 2011 |access-date=January 26, 2013 |archive-date=September 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120928071738/http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2011-08-08/ibm_bails_on_blue_waters_supercomputer.html |url-status=live }} Cray Inc. then was awarded a $188 million contract with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to build the supercomputer for the Blue Waters project; the supercomputer was installed in phases in 2012.{{cite news|last=Wood|first=Paul|date=November 14, 2011|title=Cray Inc. replacing IBM to build UI supercomputer|newspaper=The News-Gazette|url=https://www.news-gazette.com/news/cray-inc-replacing-ibm-to-build-ui-supercomputer/article_d44db1c8-ad48-5545-9a4c-88b49df1d455.html|url-status=live|access-date=January 26, 2013|archive-date=November 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101213546/https://www.news-gazette.com/news/cray-inc-replacing-ibm-to-build-ui-supercomputer/article_d44db1c8-ad48-5545-9a4c-88b49df1d455.html}} It operated until December 31, 2021, and was replaced by the Delta project in April 2022.{{Cite web |last=Morgan |first=Timothy Prickett |date=2023-07-11 |title=NCSA Builds Out Delta Supercomputer With An AI Extension |url=https://www.nextplatform.com/2023/07/11/ncsa-builds-out-delta-supercomputer-with-an-ai-extension/ |access-date=2024-07-30 |website=nextplatform.com |language=en-US}}
Performance
Blue Waters ran science and engineering codes at sustained speeds of at least one petaFLOPS. It had more than 1.5 PB of memory, more than 25 PB of disk storage, and up to 500 PB of tape storage.{{cite web |title=About Blue Waters |url=http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/bluewaters |access-date=September 15, 2014 |archive-date=September 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903152538/http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/enabling/bluewaters/ |url-status=live }} The storage filesystem was the Cray Lustre parallel file system, which is capable of terabyte-per-second storage bandwidth. It was connected with 300 Gbit/s wide area links.{{cite web |last=Humphries |first=Matthew |title=Blue Waters petaflops supercomputer installation begins |url=http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/blue-waters-petaflop-supercomputer-installation-begins-20120130/ |work=Geek.com |date=January 30, 2012 |access-date=January 26, 2013 |archive-date=April 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428023540/http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/blue-waters-petaflop-supercomputer-installation-begins-20120130 |url-status=live }}
Facility
File:Blue Waters - Cray servers (1).jpg
A machine the scale of Blue Waters introduces special concerns with regards to cooling and power. A new National Petascale Computing Facility was built at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at the corner of Oak Street and St. Mary's Road. This facility houses Blue Waters and other NCSA computing, networking, and data systems. The {{convert|88000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} building has a {{convert|20000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} machine room. The facility has been certified LEED Gold.[http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/about/facilities/npcf National Petascale Computing Facility] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131111154454/http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/about/facilities/npcf |date=2013-11-11 }}. National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Retrieved on 23 OCtober 2016. The facility makes use of the university's campus-wide water cooling system and additional on-site cooling towers that take advantage of the low temperatures in Illinois during the winter months to help reduce energy consumption. The building was designed using complex fluid dynamic models to optimize the cooling system. Energy efficiency at the data center is estimated to be in the 85–90% range, far superior to the 40% efficiency typically seen in large data centers.{{cite news |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/08/power7_bluewaters_data_center/ |title=IBM drops Power7 drain in 'Blue Waters' |first=Timothy |last=Prickett Morgan |work=The Register |date=December 8, 2008 |access-date=January 26, 2013 |archive-date=October 20, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020201237/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/08/power7_bluewaters_data_center/ |url-status=live }}{{Needs update|date=June 2023}}
See also
References
{{reflist|2}}
Further reading
- {{cite news |url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10410044-64.html |title=IBM: Envisioning the world's fastest supercomputer |first=Brooke |last=Crothers |work=CNET News |date=December 7, 2009 |access-date=January 26, 2013}}
- {{cite news |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/27/ibm_power7_hpc_server/ |title=IBM shows off Power7 HPC monster |first=Timothy |last=Prickett Morgan |work=The Register |date=November 27, 2009 |access-date=January 26, 2013}}
- {{cite news |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/11/ibm_power7_ncsa/ |title=IBM's eight-core Power7 chip to clock in at 4.0GHz |first=Ashlee |last=Vance |author-link=Ashlee Vance |work=The Register |date=July 11, 2008 |access-date=January 26, 2013}}
- {{cite news |url=http://www.news-gazette.com/news/education/2011-09-25/behind-parting-ibm-and-blue-waters.html |title=Behind the parting of IBM and Blue Waters |first=Paul |last=Wood |work=The News-Gazette |date=September 25, 2011 |access-date=January 26, 2013}}
External links
{{commons category}}
- {{Official website|https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/}}
{{University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}
{{Parallel Computing|state=collapsed}}
{{Cray computers}}
Category:National Science Foundation