Volume 5, Number 1
May 2006

MCSR to Add 32 CPUs to Redwood and Replace 22 Nodes in Mimosa in June 2006

The upgrade to Redwood consists of 32 additional 1.3 GHz Itanium2 processors and 32 GB of system memory. This brings the total system configuration to 224 processors and 224 GB memory. We will run benchmarks later on the upgraded system. Actual LinPak performance should be approximately 1 TeraFLOP.

Recently arrived are 22 x Dell 2.8 GHz Intel P4 Nodes (each w/1GB memory) for our Mimosa Linux Cluster. These will replace older, slower nodes in the cluster that only have 512 MB memory. This cluster currently contains 251 Intel nodes. This number won't change much, but after the upgrade, all nodes configured for multi-node jobs in the cluster will have the same clock speed of 2.8 GHz, and the same memory profile: 1GB. Slower 1.8 and 1.4 MHz nodes will be used for 1-node jobs running in queue MCSR-1N, or in the class accounts queue: MCSR-CA. All of the remaining six-year old Compaq PIII's (the original cluster nodes) will be retired. A new Dell Dual Processor Intel Xeon Server will replace the old Compaq Server as the cluster's front end/gateway system. Offline installation and testing of the new machines has already begun under Fedora Linux, which we hope to migrate to (from Red Hat 8) during the hardware upgrade.

Both system upgrades will probably occur in June 2006. More details will be posted in the coming weeks via email and our web page.

The MCSR received a small budget increase from the MS Legislature for FY2007. We are very appreciative of the continuing support that the MCSR has experienced over the years, especially in recent, very difficult budget situations. BTW, next year the MCSR will celebrate its 20th anniversary! Mississippi should be proud of this long-term investment in research and education made by our State's leaders. The MCSR currently supports over $30 million in research contracts and grants from the MS IHL's.