MPC Computer

Summary: OIT and the School of Physical Sciences have a cluster computer system available to all UCI researchers for high-end, parallel processing.

The Office of Information Technology, in conjunction with the School of Physical Sciences, has purchased a computer system that can be used by UCI researchers campus-wide for high-end, parallel processing applications. This system is a combination of advanced computer hardware and software that analyze data and produce results at much higher rates than are available through computers available to most researchers. Commonly referred to as a "Beowulf," this computer system performs computations on multiple CPUs to complete a task with increased speed.

mpc.uci.edu

This Beowulf system can be employed where there is a need for:

processing jobs that have large and sometimes multidimensional data volumes and large derived data
processing jobs with complex algorithms and numerous iterations
3D rendering of complex graphics
rapid turn-around of finite experimental models (testing, analyzing results, modifying hypothesis and associated computational parameters, and re-testing)

This Beowulf system is housed at OIT in Engineering Gateway and comprises the following hardware and software:

16 compute nodes and 1 head node
1.33 GHz AMD Thunderbird CPUs
512 MB Ram, 256 MB L2 cache
30 GB system disk
75 GB user data disk
20 GB scratch disk
10/100 ethernet
Portland Group Parallel Fortran (90 & 77), C & C++
MPI
PBS queuing system
Gnu tools

OIT will provide the system administration services for this system.

We are currently seeking researchers to use this Beowulf system and participation is free to UCI faculty. If you have an application that requires the capabilities of this Beowulf system, we encourage you to participate.

HPC contact