At a glance
By using state-of-the-art technology from Atos, the University of Paderborn has the necessary basis for high-quality, timely and flexible data evaluation.
The latest technologies and first-class IT equipment are the basis for many scientific studies. That’s why we are so pleased to be able to create even better framework conditions for national and international cutting-edge research with Noctua2.
Professor Birgitt Riegraf, President of Paderborn University
Procurement of the high-performance computer Noctua2 for the University of Paderborn
High-quality results require a modern, highly available and flexible IT infrastructure. At the same time, economic efficiency must be taken into account when operating these modern facilities; this includes power consumption and cooling in particular.
The challenge was to find the optimal combination of the best performance and functionality offerings, low overall operating costs – especially for energy efficiency and water cooling – the configuration of various nodes (computing nodes, FPGA nodes, high-speed network, parallel storage system) and suitable functionality for the cluster management system (user environment).
“In order to guarantee the best possible quality for scientific simulations and data analysis, and to ensure that Paderborn University remains well-positioned for the future, modern IT infrastructure is essential. At the same time, cost-efficiency is important in operating these modern systems. That especially includes power consumption and cooling,” says Simone Probst, Vice President for Economic and Personnel Administration at Paderborn University.
Project execution
Atos is responsible for installing and commissioning the new supercomputer and will maintain the system for the next five years.
The university’s new system includes these components:
- BullSequana XH2000: for all computing nodes cooled with warm water:
– BullSequana X2410 equipped with AMD Milan 7763 CPUs
– BullSequana X2415 equipped with Nvidia A100-40 GPUs - BullSequana X400 FPGA Node
- Nvidia InfiniBand HDR/HDR100 interconnect network
- 2x DDN 7990X storage with Lustre File system (3PB capacity)
- Atos Smart Management Center (SMC) software suite for system management
“As the leading European provider in the area of supercomputing, Atos is in the best position to equip Paderborn University and its research with outstanding technology. We are pleased that we were able to win the tender, and we will provide Paderborn University with the modern, highly available and flexible supercomputer infrastructure, including years of maintenance support, that is needed for excellent science and research.”
Dr. Martin Matzke, Head of Big Data & Security, Atos Central Europe
Outcomes
Dr. Jens Simon, Plant Manager for the Paderborn Center for Parallel Computing (PC2), is looking forward to the installation of the new computer. “With more than 140,000 processor cores from the latest AMD Milan 7763 CPU generation and the especially high-performance Nvidia A100-40 GPU accelerators, we are moving into a whole new dimension of processing power,” says Simon. “It will offer our users a very efficient large-scale research device that features the latest technologies.”
By using state-of-the-art technology from Atos, the University of Paderborn has the necessary basis for high-quality, timely and flexible data evaluation. By using innovative technologies, the university is prepared for the future and this creates long-term investment security. This creates maximum flexibility in terms of connectivity and performance as well as cooling, and covers the widest possible range of applications. The new system can be operated with the lowest TCO thanks to the free-cooling capabilities of the Sequana XH2000.
By using Noctua2, the university can meet the growing needs of its users.