High-Performance Computing

New Supercomputer Will Power Education and Research Across Oklahoma

• By Rhea Kelly
• 05/19/15

A new supercomputer at the University of Central Oklahoma will support education and research across the state. Named "Buddy" in honor of the university's mascot, Buddy Bronco, the cluster is being funded by a $304,745 National Science Foundation grant awarded to UCO's Center for Research and Education in Interdisciplinary Computation (CREIC) last year. CREIC serves as a "technical resource for diverse and interdisciplinary research and educational projects requiring advanced computational facilities and support," according to the university.

"Buddy" will be built with Pinnacle Flex architecture from HPC vendor Advanced Clustering Technologies. Pinnacle Flex uses servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5 family, with multiple configuration options available. The cluster's aggregate peak speed will be 32 teraflops; "dedicated GPU and Phi nodes will help researchers accelerate their code, and high memory nodes will facilitate bioinformatics and genomics research," according to a press release. In addition, Advanced Clustering's eQUEUE online job submission tool will enable batch job submissions, support interactive GUI applications and remote visualization, and provide analytics and reporting.

"This cluster is the cornerstone of our mission to transform the research computing infrastructure at the university," said Evan Lemley, director of CREIC and lead researcher on the project, in a prepared statement. "We'll be able to meet the growing needs for high performance computing resources for student-centered research and education at the University of Central Oklahoma and other institutions in Oklahoma."