Editor’s note: This article is a part of The Daily Illini’s Semester in Review issue. Regular publication will resume Friday, Jan. 11.
The petascale computing project Blue Waters, which has been under construction since November 2008, is nearly ready for operation.
The supercomputer has been completely installed since earlier this year. However, the organization that operates the system, the University’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and Cray, the contractor that built the system, are still in the acceptance testing process.
“(We are) working with Cray to test the performance of the supercomputer … (and) collecting data to show how it will perform,” center spokeswoman Trish Barker said.
The National Science Foundation, which funded the project, requires these acceptance tests in order to give final approval of the supercomputer before it enters operational phase, Barker said.
Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!
Greg Bauer, Blue Waters advanced user support program manager, said the acceptance tests are broken up into different phases and that the current one is the friendly-user period, which allows Blue Waters staff to test the system’s operation by having researchers use it.
“The friendly-user period provides a way for the researchers to run their applications on the machine and lets us test different aspects of the machine,” Bauer said. “We put the machine through its paces and make sure we’re not missing something before finishing.”
Blue Waters is among the top supercomputers in the world, Barker said. With the ability to make 11.5 quadrillion calculations per second, compared with trillions per second in the past, Blue Waters will give scientists more detailed data for their research than previous supercomputers.
University physics professor Klaus Schulten already used an earlier version of the system during an early testing period to simulate part of the HIV capsid and to give input in early performance tests.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us,” Schulten said. “We took the first step right away when Blue Waters came out … but we still need to complete it, and for that, we need Blue Waters.”
The date by which Schulten and other researchers will be able to use Blue Waters depends on when acceptance testing is finished. But Barker said the supercomputer will likely go into operation before the opening party on March 28.
“We are very pleased with Blue Waters with meeting, and even exceeding, a lot of expectations,” NCSA spokeswoman Liz Murray said. “We expect to report additional achievements and improvements as the SPT (sustained performance testing) benchmark test team continues.”
Austin can be reached at [email protected].
