Steele (supercomputer)
Encyclopedia
Steele is a supercomputer
at Purdue University
.
The cluster is the second largest campus supercomputer in the Big Ten not a part of a national center and was the largest when built. Steele is made up of 893 Dell dual quad-core computer nodes and has a theoretical peak performance of more than 60 teraflop
s. It was number 104 on the November 2008 Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list
and 196 in June 2009. Steele and its 7,144 cores replaced the Purdue Lear
supercomputer which had 1,024 cores but was substantially slower. Steele is used to design new drugs and materials, to model weather patterns and the effects of global warming
, and to engineer future aircraft and nano electronics, among other things. Steele is operated by Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), the university's central information technology organization, which also operates the Coates cluster
. Steele runs Red Hat enterprise Linux and also has compilers and scientific programming libraries installed. The Steele cluster is managed using cfengine, an open source
management tool. The cluster is primarily networked utilizing a Foundry Networks BigIron RX-16 switch with a Tyco MRJ-21 wiring system delivering 576 non-blocking gigabit connections and eight 10-gigabit uplinks. Unused, or opportunistic, cycles from Steele are made available to the National Science Foundation
's TeraGrid
and the Open Science Grid using Condor software. Steele is part of Purdue's distributed computing Condor flock, which is the largest publicly disclosed distributed computing system in the world and the center of DiaGrid, a nearly 27,000-processor (summer of 2009) Condor-powered distributed computing network for research involving Purdue and partners at other campuses. Steele was built in four hours on May 5, 2008, by a team of 200 Purdue computer technicians and volunteers, including four volunteers from athletic rival Indiana University, and surprised even those working on the project by running 1,400 science and engineering jobs by lunchtime.
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
at Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
.
The cluster is the second largest campus supercomputer in the Big Ten not a part of a national center and was the largest when built. Steele is made up of 893 Dell dual quad-core computer nodes and has a theoretical peak performance of more than 60 teraflop
FLOPS
In computing, FLOPS is a measure of a computer's performance, especially in fields of scientific calculations that make heavy use of floating-point calculations, similar to the older, simpler, instructions per second...
s. It was number 104 on the November 2008 Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful known computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year...
and 196 in June 2009. Steele and its 7,144 cores replaced the Purdue Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
supercomputer which had 1,024 cores but was substantially slower. Steele is used to design new drugs and materials, to model weather patterns and the effects of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, and to engineer future aircraft and nano electronics, among other things. Steele is operated by Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), the university's central information technology organization, which also operates the Coates cluster
Coates (supercomputer)
Coates is a supercomputer installed at Purdue University on July 21, 2009. The high-performance computing cluster is operated by Information Technology at Purdue , the university's central information technology organization...
. Steele runs Red Hat enterprise Linux and also has compilers and scientific programming libraries installed. The Steele cluster is managed using cfengine, an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
management tool. The cluster is primarily networked utilizing a Foundry Networks BigIron RX-16 switch with a Tyco MRJ-21 wiring system delivering 576 non-blocking gigabit connections and eight 10-gigabit uplinks. Unused, or opportunistic, cycles from Steele are made available to the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
's TeraGrid
TeraGrid
TeraGrid is an e-Science grid computing infrastructure combining resources at eleven partner sites. The project started in 2001 and operated from 2004 through 2011....
and the Open Science Grid using Condor software. Steele is part of Purdue's distributed computing Condor flock, which is the largest publicly disclosed distributed computing system in the world and the center of DiaGrid, a nearly 27,000-processor (summer of 2009) Condor-powered distributed computing network for research involving Purdue and partners at other campuses. Steele was built in four hours on May 5, 2008, by a team of 200 Purdue computer technicians and volunteers, including four volunteers from athletic rival Indiana University, and surprised even those working on the project by running 1,400 science and engineering jobs by lunchtime.