PSSC Labs Expands the Computing Capabilities of CIW's PowerWulf Cluster

July 27, 2012 | Flashback to November of 2010 and PSSC Labs are ahead of the game. Computer clusters need more processing power over time in order to remain updated for scientific discoveries. When budget became available to the Carnegie Institute of Washington's (CIW) Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, they contacted PSSC Labs to expand the computing capability of their existing PowerWulf Cluster. At the time, there were over 1,000 PowerWulf Clusters operational.

In 2009, CIW purchased a 96 processor core, 192 GB memory PowerWulf Cluster. The primary, research use for the cluster is "adaptive mesh refinement hydrodynamics code for studying mixing and transport processors in the presolar cloud and solar nebula." Sounds pretty smart, doesn’t it? That’s because it is. The cluster is used for the ability to help understand the formation of the nebulas. In case you don’t know, nebulas are regions or clouds of intersteller dust and gas. In order to study and create scientific breakthroughs about the universe and the environment, scientists need computing power to make calculations that normally would take a regular computer system years to process. When companies use clusters, such as Powerwulf, these calculations can be done in days or even hours

With such a huge project, a primary concern is the time requirements to manage, monitor and maintain the computer cluster. PSSC Labs understands the need to deliver a stable solution requiring as little updates as possible. Just when you thought technology was getting better, faster, and more reliable, PSSC came out with the more advanced, PowerWulf Cluster that has rolled with technological advancements for the past two years. Think about how much your cell phone has changed in the past two years – pretty dramatically. Yet the advancement of the PowerWulf has maintained its state-of-the-art quality, giving scientists a cosmic bang for their buck.

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For more details about PSSC Labs' high performance servers, supercharged workstations and industry leading clusters and clouds, visit us online at http://pssclabs.com.

LSI 3ware RAID Controller Cards Selected by PSSC Labs to Power High-Performance Computing Cluster Solutions

November 9, 2011 | LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today announced that PSSC Labs has selected LSI™ 3ware® 6Gb/s SATA+SAS RAID controller cards for integration with its PowerWulf Cluster high-performance computing (HPC) solutions. The combination of LSI 3ware 9750 series controllers and PowerWulf Clusters is designed to provide researchers in the life sciences community with a high-performance, turnkey solution capable of addressing both the computational and data capacity requirements of genome sequencing applications.

"Genome sequencing research can produce terabytes of data in a single run, putting immense pressure on computer processing power and data storage capacity," said Alex Lesser, vice president, PSSC Labs. "LSI’s products are extremely reliable, easy to configure and cost effective. They are a perfect match for our specifications and the laborious requirements of our end customers."

PSSC Labs PowerWulf Clusters are high-performance computing systems, which include the Raid Station VPR-NXXL, the storage solution within the system. Raid Station VPR series solutions are powered by 3ware RAID technologies, which help optimize and increase system performance, allowing researchers to conduct more sequencing runs and focus on experiments and analysis rather than management of the cluster.

PSSC Labs selected LSI 3ware RAID controllers over competitive solutions based on the high performance and proven reliability they achieved in PSSC Labs' rigorous testing processes. Internal tests conducted for Raid Station products, even when using lower-performance 3Gb/s SATA drives, yielded sequential throughput performance exceeding 1TB per second, with reads of up to 1,100MB/sec and writes of up to 946MB/sec. (1)

PowerWulf Clusters also provide massive amounts of available RAID storage space. Each PowerWulf Cluster includes a minimum of 10TB of available storage, which can be easily expanded to several hundred terabytes. Utilizing LSI 600 series JBOD storage enclosures, which are fully compatible with LSI 3ware RAID controllers, users can cost-effectively expand and scale storage capacity to meet rapidly escalating data volumes.

"In genome sequencing labs, scientists are undertaking potentially life-changing research, and it is essential that their efforts are not hindered by the limitations of information technology," said Brent Blanchard, worldwide channel sales and marketing director, LSI. "LSI has a long and successful history of delivering high-performance storage solutions to government and university-based labs and private research institutions. We're excited that PSSC Labs has selected LSI 3ware RAID technologies to boost the storage capabilities of their HPC systems for life sciences research."

LSI 3ware SATA+SAS RAID controllers and LSI 600 series JBODs are available through a worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs. Additional product information is available at the LSI Channel Gateway (www.lsi.com/channel).

About LSI
LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products, which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together. The company offers a broad portfolio of capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, adapters, systems and software that are trusted by the world's best known brands to power leading solutions in the Storage and Networking markets. More information is available at www.lsi.com.

(1) Actual test included two LSI 3ware 9650SE-12 port 3Gb/s SATA controllers running RAID 5, LVM striped into one volume under XFS.

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Editor's Notes:
All LSI news releases (financial, acquisitions, manufacturing, products, technology, etc.) are issued exclusively by PR Newswire and are immediately thereafter posted on the company's external web site, http://www.lsi.com.

LSI, the LSI & Design logo and 3ware are trademarks or registered trademarks of LSI Corporation.

All other brands or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

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For more details about PSSC Labs' high performance servers, supercharged workstations and industry leading clusters and clouds, visit us online at http://pssclabs.com.

Carnegie Institute of Washington Upgrades Supercomputer With Just One Call

November 3, 2010 | Computer clusters commonly need more processing power over time in order to remain viable as tools for scientific research and discovery. Many research scientists begin small and then add horsepower as budgets become available. When budget became available to the Carnegie Institute of Washington's (CIW) Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, they contacted PSSC Labs to expand the computing capability of their existing PowerWulf Cluster. With over 1,000 PowerWulf Clusters operational today, PSSC Labs understands that end users are looking for a simple, cost effective and easy method to add computing power.

In 2009, CIW purchased a 96 processor core, 192 GB memory PowerWulf Cluster. The primary research use for the cluster is "adaptive mesh refinement hydrodynamics code for studying mixing and transport processors in the presolar cloud and solar nebula." According to Michael Acierno (IT Manager / Department of Terrestrial Magnetims), the PowerWulf Cluster continues to exceed expectations. "Our experience to date has been completely satisfactory," explains Mr. Acierno. "The installation of our PowerWulf Cluster was literally plug and play. PSSC Labs had all our requirements and configured the cluster prior to shipping. Except for adding user accounts, the cluster was ready to begin computations as we powered up." Like most system administrators, Mr. Acierno's time is limited. A primary concern is the ongoing time requirements to manage, monitor and maintain the compute cluster. PSSC Labs understands the need to deliver a stable solution requiring as little user input possible. "Management has been simple and has required far less of my time than I anticipated," explains Mr. Acierno.

When the time came to upgrade the processing power of the cluster, Mr. Acierno turned to PSSC Labs for help. PSSC Labs recommended migrating to their revolutionary new server platform; the PowerServe DUO TI2400. This unique design offers two complete and independent servers in just 1U of rack space. Unlike other blade servers, the PowerServe DUO TI2400 has no shared backplane or shared power supply. A key feature of this new platform is the "tool-free" design which allows for the easiest system upgrades and maintenance possible. In addition, the PowerServe DUO TI2400 offers industry leading "green features" including 90%+ efficient power supplies, power reduction management features and 55% recyclable metal. "We are pleased with the continuing improvements in cluster technology that PSSC Labs is making," asserts Mr. Aceirno. "Notably, the shrinking physical size of the server package while simultaneously increasing the number of cores. This trend is what makes in-house resources so attractive since a very powerful cluster does not require excessive and cooling demands."

Integrating these new server nodes into the PowerWulf Cluster required very little effort from Mr. Acierno. Each PowerWulf Cluster includes CBeST, the Complete Beowulf Software Toolkit developed and supported by PSSC Labs. CBeST includes an imaging utility allowing new nodes to be connected to the cluster switch and automatically receive the latest compute node image via PXE network. Very little input is required from the user and PSSC Labs Cluster Technicians are available to assist. With the addition of the new nodes, CIW's cluster performance increased by 50%. "Thanks to the excellent work of (PSSC Labs) the upgrade was simple and fast. Even the nodes were labeled properly. That attention to detail does not go unnoticed."


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For more details about PSSC Labs' high performance servers, supercharged workstations and industry leading clusters and clouds, visit us online at http://pssclabs.com.