Archive of Spotlight Feature Articles

FSL'S High Performance Supercomputer

by Barbara McGehan

It looks like stacks of never ending metal boxes, or maybe like storage lockers at an airport. But in reality, it's JET, one of the fastest weather research supercomputers in the world and an exciting step forward for NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) in Boulder, Colo. Recently acquired by FSL, the supercomputer will assist researchers in improving existing weather forecast models and in developing new ones.

What makes a supercomputer super? Well, it's a combination of speed and processing power. Supercomputers are the fastest computers in the world, used to solve the hardest problems. For instance, predicting the weather, decoding a human's genetic sequences, designing airplanes, or simulating the greenhouse effect on the Earth's atmosphere are all done on the fastest computers possible.

Supercomputers often cost $10 million or more. The fastest supercomputer today is about 10,000 times faster than the fastest home computer. Supercomputers also feature super-fast networking, and super-large and fast disks. The high performance computing system acquired by the Forecast Systems Laboratory is called JET because of it's speed and use in aviation research. Jet's internal network is 5 million times faster than the modems most people use to connect to the Internet from home, and Jet's tape storage system holds 20,000 times as much data as the typical hard disk. These super networks and super storage systems are needed to process the large amount of data generated every day by such systems as weather satellites.

WHAT IS JET MADE OF?

Although JET is a supercomputer, it is mostly constructed out of the same parts you find in home computers. Doing this allows the cost of the system to be kept low. JET was designed and built entirely using the LINUX operating system, a popular system used by many Internet servers. Developed by High Performance Technologies, Inc. (HPTi) of Arlington, VA, the high performance computing system presently runs one third of a trillion arithmetic computations per second, a computing system 20 times more powerful than FSL’s previous computer capability. Currently, JET has 276 Compaq Alpha processors. The computers are tied together with a special system or interconnect called Myrinet. It allows the computers to talk to each other simultaneously while working on a problem. Each rack of equipment holds 10 separate computers in cases.

Soon, more processors will be added and by the year 2002, JET will be processing in excess of 5 TeraFLOPS of data or 5 trillion arithmetic computations per second!

WHAT'S SO UNUSUAL ABOUT JET?

Supercomputers in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's were built using expensive, customized processors. In the mid 1990's, supercomputer makers started using the same processors in supercomputers that were used in smaller computers, but most of the parts of the machines were uniquely designed for supercomputing, and the result was fast but expensive machines.

Today, JET is the first computer based almost exclusively on commodity components which beat out traditional supercomputers on price and performance. With more computing power for its dollars, the Forecast Systems Lab will be better able to accomplish its mission.

WHAT WILL JET BE USED FOR?

The supercomputer will support many activities at the laboratory, particularly the development of weather models. The primary purpose of model development is to evaluate and demonstrate new or improved weather prediction in a quasi-operational setting. Using a simulated operational environment allows several different modeling systems to be run simultaneously. "Ocean and meteorological models require a tremendous amount of computing power," says A. E. (Sandy) MacDonald, director of NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL). "This high performance computing system enables us to process large amounts of data so we can run these weather models of the future."

The United States is becoming increasingly vulnerable to hazardous weather, especially in the transportation and high-tech communications industries. Most of the hazardous weather is local since it affects only small areas at any given moment. In response to this problem meteorological researchers have developed high-resolution computer models that can capture these events in forecasts. FSL is a national leader in this modeling effort. Advanced weather models developed at FSL and other laboratories help create timely and accurate forecasts that have already saved lives and property.

MacDonald says that 40 percent of the new computer system will be used for weather prediction models, 40 per cent for the North American Atmospheric Observing System (NAOS), and the remaining 20 percent will be available for other NOAA research labs to use for research in climate prediction, ocean modeling, and solar phenomena.

[10/9/00]

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