Simulations Create Progress
Accelerating Advances in Technology
In order to speed up every technology from drug discovery to fusion energy development, what is
needed is high speed simulation software running on high speed supercomputers. NVIDIA is a leading
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) manufacturer. They have developed a system called CUDA that uses
GPUs for scientific computing. CUDA now accelerates Amber, an important molecular dynamic simulation
program used by more than 60,000 researchers in academia and pharmaceutical companies worldwide
to accelerate new drug discovery. CUDA sped up Amber 50 times.
Sequoia, IBM and DOE making 20 petaflop for 2011
IBM has promised the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration a 20 petaflop supercomputer that is
scheduled for delivery in 2011. The supercomputer will be called Sequoia. The computer should be ten
times more energy efficient per calculation than current supercomputers.
The Sequoia effort includes two generations of IBM Blue Gene supercomputers that will deliver the next
generation of advanced systems to weapon simulation codes being developed under the ASC program.
ASC is a cornerstone of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) program to ensure the
safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent without underground testing -- Stockpile
Stewardship. These two Blue Gene systems are "Dawn," a 500-teraflop system that was accepted by
LLNL in March of 2009, and "Sequoia," a 20-petaflop system based on future Blue Gene technology,
slated for delivery in 2011.
Lawrence Livermore Selects TotalView Debugger for the 20 Petaflop System.
Among the features that TotalView Technologies will incorporate for the Dawn and Sequoia systems are
user-programmable data display, fast conditional breakpoints and watchpoints, compiled expressions,
asynchronous thread control, and full post-mortem debugging.
At 20 petaflops, Sequoia will be 34 times as powerful as LLNL's current Blue Gene/L, giving scientists a
lot more computing cycles for weapons simulations and basic science research. "Sequoia represents a
major challenge to code developers as the multi-core era demands that we effectively absorb more
cores and threads per MPI task," said Mark Seager, Asst. Dept. Head for Advanced Computing
Technology at LLNL. "This programming challenge can only be overcome with world class code
development tools. Through our long-term partnership with cutting-edge technology companies like
TotalView Technologies we are confident we can deliver on our demanding debugger scalability and
usability requirements."
TotalView is a comprehensive source code analysis and memory error detection tool that dramatically
enhances developer productivity by simplifying the process of debugging parallel, data-intensive,
multi-process, multi-threaded or network-distributed applications. Built to handle the complexities of the
world's most demanding applications, TotalView offers a number of advanced features that help speed
development and eliminate bugs quickly, and is capable of scaling to thousands of processes or threads
with applications distributed over multiple machines or processors.
Next
Accelerating Advances in Technology
In order to speed up every technology from drug discovery to fusion energy development, what is
needed is high speed simulation software running on high speed supercomputers. NVIDIA is a leading
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) manufacturer. They have developed a system called CUDA that uses
GPUs for scientific computing. CUDA now accelerates Amber, an important molecular dynamic simulation
program used by more than 60,000 researchers in academia and pharmaceutical companies worldwide
to accelerate new drug discovery. CUDA sped up Amber 50 times.
Sequoia, IBM and DOE making 20 petaflop for 2011
IBM has promised the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration a 20 petaflop supercomputer that is
scheduled for delivery in 2011. The supercomputer will be called Sequoia. The computer should be ten
times more energy efficient per calculation than current supercomputers.
The Sequoia effort includes two generations of IBM Blue Gene supercomputers that will deliver the next
generation of advanced systems to weapon simulation codes being developed under the ASC program.
ASC is a cornerstone of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) program to ensure the
safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent without underground testing -- Stockpile
Stewardship. These two Blue Gene systems are "Dawn," a 500-teraflop system that was accepted by
LLNL in March of 2009, and "Sequoia," a 20-petaflop system based on future Blue Gene technology,
slated for delivery in 2011.
Lawrence Livermore Selects TotalView Debugger for the 20 Petaflop System.
Among the features that TotalView Technologies will incorporate for the Dawn and Sequoia systems are
user-programmable data display, fast conditional breakpoints and watchpoints, compiled expressions,
asynchronous thread control, and full post-mortem debugging.
At 20 petaflops, Sequoia will be 34 times as powerful as LLNL's current Blue Gene/L, giving scientists a
lot more computing cycles for weapons simulations and basic science research. "Sequoia represents a
major challenge to code developers as the multi-core era demands that we effectively absorb more
cores and threads per MPI task," said Mark Seager, Asst. Dept. Head for Advanced Computing
Technology at LLNL. "This programming challenge can only be overcome with world class code
development tools. Through our long-term partnership with cutting-edge technology companies like
TotalView Technologies we are confident we can deliver on our demanding debugger scalability and
usability requirements."
TotalView is a comprehensive source code analysis and memory error detection tool that dramatically
enhances developer productivity by simplifying the process of debugging parallel, data-intensive,
multi-process, multi-threaded or network-distributed applications. Built to handle the complexities of the
world's most demanding applications, TotalView offers a number of advanced features that help speed
development and eliminate bugs quickly, and is capable of scaling to thousands of processes or threads
with applications distributed over multiple machines or processors.
Next
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