Legit Reviews

Tokyo, November 14, 2011 — Fujitsu today announced that it has received an order for its new supercomputer from the Supercomputing Division, Information Technology Center, The University of Tokyo (SCD/ITC).

Fujitsu supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX10 will be used for the University of Tokyo's new supercomputer system, which will have a theoretical computational speed of 1.13 petaflops(1), making the system one of the few petaflops-class center systems in the world.

The new supercomputer system will start operations in April 2012. It will be used to support SCD/ITC's advanced research and educational activities in a variety of fields of science and technology, and is expected to be used by corporations as well.
Background to the Deployment of the New Supercomputer

SCD/ITC was established in 1965 as a large-scale computer center for shared use by researchers in Japan, and has been operating under its current name since 1999. The center has been contributing to advanced research using supercomputers in science and technology, and is used by more than 1,500 researchers inside and outside of the university. To meet the needs of an increasing number of diverse users and to handle large-scale applications, SCD/ITC selected PRIMEHPC FX10 for its superior computing performance, high data input/output speeds, and outstanding data processing capabilities, as well as its high compatibility with the K computer(2).

The new system is expected to be put to use in a variety of fields of science and technology (including earth science, astrophysics, seismology, environmental modeling, materials science, energy, biology, fluid dynamics, and solid mechanics).
Overview of the New Supercomputer System

The calculation nodes of the new supercomputer system will use a PRIMEHPC FX10 configuration comprised of 4,800 nodes. Combining high performance, scalability, and reliability with superior energy efficiency, PRIMEHPC FX10 further enhances Fujitsu's technology used in the K computer, which achieved the world's top-ranked performance(3) capability.

For the supercomputer's peripheral systems, 74 PRIMERGY servers, 234 ETERNUS storage systems, Technical Computing Suite(4) HPC middleware for peta-scale systems, and FEFS(5), a high performance, highly-reliable distributed file system which is a component of the Technical Computing Suite, will be deployed.
Specifications of the New Supercomputer System
Specifications of the New Supercomputer System Compute Nodes PRIMEHPC FX10
Number of racks 50
Nodes 4,800
Theoretical Computing Speed 1.13 petaflops
Memory Capacity 150TB
Interconnects 6D Mesh/Torus Tofu Interconnects
Log-in Nodes Management Servers 16 PRIMERGY RX200S6 servers
58 PRIMERGY RX300S6 servers
Local Files 150 ETERNUS DX80S2 storage units
1.1 petabytes (RAID5)
Shared Files 80 ETERNUS DX410S2 storage units
2.1 petabytes (RAID6)
File System FEFS
Comment from Kengo Nakajima, Ph.D., Director, Supercomputing Division, Information Technology Center, The University of Tokyo

Many of our center's users are Japan's top researchers, and they are also K computer users. By deploying PRIMEHPC FX10, which is highly compatible with the K computer, we hope to contribute to the further development of Japan's computational science capabilities. We also plan to use the new system in the HPC educational programs we have established in our graduate school to foster the development of engineers who will lead future advances in computational science. From the standpoint of the center's operation, the supercomputer's superior performance per watt of 2GFLOPS/W is especially important in light of the current electricity supply situation.
Glossary and Notes

1 Petaflops:
Quadrillion floating-point operations per second.
2 K computer:
The K computer, which is being jointly developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu, is part of the High-Performance Computing Infrastructure (HPCI) initiative led by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Configuration of the K computer began at the end of September 2010, with availability for shared use scheduled for 2012. The "K computer" is the nickname RIKEN has been using for the supercomputer of this project since July 2010. "K" comes from the Japanese Kanji character "Kei" which means ten peta or 10 to the 16th power. The logo for the K computer based on the Japanese character for Kei, was selected in October 2010. In its original sense, "Kei" expresses a large gateway, and it is hoped that the system will be a new gateway to computational science.
3 Top-ranked performance:
According to the 37th TOP500 list announced on June 20, 2011, with a performance of 8.162 petaflops.
4 Technical Computing Suite:
Fujitsu's original HPC middleware, which includes system management and job operation management functions, as well as a compiler and library, resulting in high execution performance for massively parallel applications.
5 FEFS:
Fujitsu Exabyte File System. A high-performance distributed file system that enables sharing across 100,000 nodes.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of information and communication technology (ICT)-based business solutions for the global marketplace. With approximately 170,000 employees supporting customers in over 100 countries, Fujitsu combines a worldwide corps of systems and services experts with highly reliable computing and communications products and advanced microelectronics to deliver added value to customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolid