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Company Success Stories - Thailand Advanced Cluster Computer Opens Worlds of Research
Thailand Advanced Cluster Computer Opens Worlds of Research
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Thailand Advanced Cluster Computer Opens Worlds of Research
http://www.ku.ac.th/
"Sixteen linked AMD Athlon™ processors help Kasetsart University achieve"
For a developing country such as Thailand, having a supercomputer in a university research laboratory seems like an impossible dream. Until recently, the very word "supercomputer" suggested a sprawling machine the size of a tennis court that came with a staggering price tag.
However, a technology developed at the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1994 created the first Beowulf Cluster - a high performance supercomputer built by linking 16 processor-based PCs together with a high-speed network.
In the ensuing seven years, dozens of companies worldwide have begun to offer affordable "Beowulf" supercomputing solutions to businesses and universities who need high capacity numbers crunching without the mind-boggling costs.
At Kasetsart University in Bangkok, Thailand, the once impossible dream of in-house supercomputing prowess has come true. A team called the Parallel Research Group, led by Professor Putchong Uthayopas, has explored Beowulf cluster technology since 1997. With the support of AMD Far East, Ltd., Dr. Putchong's team built one of the first advanced Beowulf cluster computers in Thailand. This system, named AMATA ([AMD] Athlon and Myrinet Advanced Testbed Architecture) centered around AMD Athlon™ processors and a Myrinet advanced switch network.
However, before they began to build the system, the Parallel Research Group researched benchmark comparisons of processor floating point performance and memory bandwidth among competing semiconductor manufacturers. That research supported their selection of AMD Athlon processors.
Consisting of 16 nodes, the system demonstrated the power of AMD Athlon processors by achieving 6.1 Gigaflops (6.1 billion operations per seconds) using the HPL (High Performance Linpack) benchmark running in parallel. “It is amazing to see that only with a small number of AMD Athlon processors, our system performance is very competitive with systems owned by many large organizations in Thailand,” said Professor Putchong.
With systems such as AMATA, Thai scientists and engineers can now explore difficult tasks like analyzing chemical engineering processes, analyzing new drugs, and developing models to track pollution in Thailand. Until recently, many considered such work impossible since there was limited opportunity to get access to a supercomputer. For Putchong and his team, a new era has arrived. "These Beowulf Supercomputers are vital scientific tools in Thailand, where research funding is very limited," said Putchong.
While favorable cost factors are critical to the rapid growth of cluster computing for scientific and university applications, only performance produces results. “When parallelizing the codes we run on AMATA, we found that with the AMD Athlon processors, we get incredible speed when running sequential code for algorithms such as grid generation and complex fluid dynamics code," said Putchong. “A calculation that previously took more than an hour we can now do in a fraction of the time. The reason the AMATA system can achieve such a high performance level is due to the AMD Athlon processor's outstanding floating point performance. The productivity gained is quite amazing."
Professor Putchong predicts that before long, every major research group in Thailand will want to own and use a Beowulf supercomputer. "Once people have access to these powerful tools, they will invent new uses for them. This is just the beginning. So much more will happen that I cannot even imagine it."
Professor Putchong says their AMD processor-based cluster allows his team to get more work done each day. "The AMATA saves us considerable time and allows us to undertake research projects that would be cost-prohibitive with a mainframe supercomputer." For Professor Putchong, the future path is clear. "We plan to expand the system to about 20 nodes this year and 32 nodes the following year. This kind of power provided by AMD Athlon processors is opening a whole new world for Thai researchers.”
© 2001 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other product names used are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective companies.
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