From the Atomic City Underground Blog of knoxvillenews.com comes word that a big kahuna of komputing is about to go online.
The Cray XK6 supercomputer is a trifecta of scalar, network and many-core innovation. It combines Cray’s proven Gemini interconnect, AMD’s leading multi-core scalar processors and NVIDIA’s powerful many-core GPU processors to create a true, productive hybrid supercomputer. Here’s the factory photo before customization:
Reporter Frank Munger writes:
Cray recently delivered the final 26 cabinets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Gaea climate research supercomputer, which is housed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The newly arrived cabinets are loaded with the new AMD 16-core Interlagos processors. According to Jeff Nichols, an associate lab director at ORNL who heads the computational science directorate, the Gaea system is still in two pieces. The first piece is the original 14-cabinet system with a peak capability of 260 teraflops, Nichols said. The second piece is the new 26-cabinet system with a capability of 720 teraflops, he said.
After the first piece is upgraded in the spring and the two pieces are integrated into one system, Gaea will become a 1.1 petaflops supercomputer, ORNL’s computing chief (who returned from a visit to China last week, where he spoke at a conference) said.
Here’s what it looks like at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, note the Earthy graphics:
While that door panel artwork was well received, word has it though, that the artwork was changed to be more representative of the i/o and stage by stage processing that takes place in this new system. Here’s the upgraded artwork and a brief description of what each processing cabinet does:
Below is the guide from left to right: Cabinet number, processing description
1. Input stage: takes data and bags, boxes, and bins it for distribution
2. Mannomatic stage: chooses which data to use, discards inappropriate data, adds proxy data where none exists, splices on new data to data that was truncated in stage 1.
3. Kevinator stage: approves processed data from stage 2, declares it “robust” using a special stamping system.
4. Hansenizer stage: Fits approved data from stage 3 to three model scenarios to match a “best fit”, applies additional corrections to elevate data for use by stage 5.
5. Gavinotron stage: Chooses data from the Giga Hansenized Climate Numbers (GHCN) to combine with Hansenized three scenario data, extrapolates data from 70°N to 90°N to fill the Gaea Global Model.
6. Humbertian Harmonizer Stage: Using bellows, and a random walk, data is wheezed out to stage 7.
7. Karl Konfabulator Stage: Assigns value to the data to report to Congress, ensuring that the data will be more valuable next year. Monitors power use, sends bills out to taxpayers.
8. Peterson Percolator Stage: Collates the data into inaccessible data furrows buried deep underground in Asheville North Carolina where the “secret sauce” is applied before percolating the data back to the surface.
9. Wigley Wombulator Stage: The data is shipped from Asheville to NCAR in Boulder via a secure optical link where the gatekeeper switch of the wombulator decides how much of it to pass onto CRU via the insecure POTS circuit from Boulder to Norwich. Only data with signed non disclosure agreements is passed on.
10. JonesiFOIAler Stage: Data received from the Wigely Wombulator is then hidden, and signed non disclosure agreements for the data are sent to the top of the paper pile in Jones office to be located by Sherpas mounting the paper summit hired by OSU’s Lonnie Thompson at some future date.
11. Briffabrowser stage: Here, the data is examined, and error flags are sent back up the processing line to all other processing stages using email. The other stages reply that the error flags don’t matter, and consensus is reached, allowing the data to be passed on to stage 12 after the emails are made public.
12. MUIRer (Make Up Independent Rationalizations) Russelizer Stage : Data and emails flagging questionable data are noted, given a brief talking to, and then passed on with no questions asked along with a “CERTIFIED A-OK” letter of endorsement.
13. Tiljander Inverter Stage: As a quality control check, Portions of the A-OK Data is inverted by the upside down Mannomatic, looked at in a mirror, then declared still usable.
14. Serializer Stage: The Final A-OK upside down Data is sent to the IPCC, where it is then returned by Indian handmaidens to the potboiling center at Almora, where it is washed repeatedly in hot water.
15. The Osterizer Stage: The IPCC Almora hot water washed data is then blended repeatedly until it reaches a fine homogenized puree.
16. The RealClimatizer Stage: Here the data undergoes public examination under intense scrutiny of thousands of like minded individuals identical processors. Tiny flecks of data that don’t consitute a pure product that may remain are picked off and routed into the borehole disposer.
17: The Cloudifier Stage: Data patterns are compared to an online satellite photo database of clouds to see if there might be any correlation. Any matches are sent back to stage 16 for disposal in the borehole.
18. The SOL Stage: Effects of sunlight on the data are removed.
19. The data is run through the final AlGoreithm, the CLOud and Weather Neutralizer (CLOWN) to ensure the final data has no remaining “weather not climate” residuals, given a happy demeanor and sent on to the final stage.
20. Output Stage: This cabinet, identical to the Input Stage 1, ejects the data in a composted form, suitable for academic consumption.
More information:
Gaea is NOAA’s prime supercomputing resource, and it will become the third petascale machine housed at ORNL. Jaguar, soon to be morphed into Titan, and Kraken, a National Science Foundation machine, are the others.
Cray XK6 Brochure (PDF)
“According to info provided by ORNL, Gaea is liquid-cooled and uses Cray’s ECOphlex technology, which employs a refrigerant to remove most of the 2.2 MW heat load. “The technology is significantly more energy-efficient than the air-cooling systems typically found in other leading-edge HPC systems,” the lab said.”
This ECOphlex refrigerant wouldn’t happen to be co2, would it maestro?
George E. Smith; says:
December 23, 2011 at 12:31 pm
“A flip-flop is a mono-stable multivibrator, and has only ONE stable state. You flip it to its metastable state and it flops back in its own good time.”
No; what you describe is known as a Monoflop. A Flip-Flop does have two stable states; and comes in several varieties, the RS-Flipflop and JK-Flipflop, if I recall correctly. You can build binary counters from JK Flipflops, as they toggle when given a clock signal.
Engineer’s peeve …
Prefix “m” = milli or 1/1000
Milli (symbol m) is a prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of one thousandth (10^-3).
Adopted in 1795, the prefix comes from the Latin mille, meaning one thousand (the plural is milia).
Prefix “M” = mega or 1,000,000
Mega- (symbol M) is an prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of million (10^6 or 1000000).
Confirmed in 1960, it comes from the Greek μέγας, meaning great.
.
Probably freon 12, by special exemption.
Brian Johnson uk says:
December 23, 2011 at 11:33 am
Surely it would be better powered by wind. Plus the inevitable UPS……… 🙂
Anthony Watts did such a brilliant mince up of all of climate science in this end-of-the-year Friday Funny, he left the rest of us nothing to do. But we found something! (: Merry Christmas
Gaea……..
We have almost learned how to survive Her temper tantrums.
Now, our hubris, assumes we can control Her ?
I went off Cray when they replaced their comfy bench seats with advertsing hoardings. But they are expensive, So I guess it makes sense. Should fit the cabs with panels so they can do ‘Your Logo Here’ to show WWF, Greenpeace ads while NOAA’s doing their model runs. Wonder what the Chinese supercomputers look like? They’re building them almost as fast as they’re building reactors to power them.
Darren Potter says:
December 23, 2011 at 5:02 am
“Superseded: Garbage in >> Grants out”
Gaea Supercomputer = More Garbage in >> Grants out Faster
I can produce a more elegant and symmetrical equation, that is a billion bucks cheaper and is already proven to work.
Grant Foster = More Garbage in >> Grants out Faster
As verification see
http://manicbeancounter.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/tamino-on-australian-sea-levels/
http://manicbeancounter.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/tamino-v-montford-a-sense-check/
At $0.05/kWh – which is less than the Lab paid for electricity when I worked there in the 1990’s – a 2.2 MW load would cost over $960,000 per year in energy costs. That does not include the cost of operating the heat removal system.
@Peter Dunford says:
December 23, 2011 at 2:59 am
On that note:
The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy:
“…And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before the data banks had been connected up it had started from I think therefore I am and got as far as the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off.
It was the size of a small city.
Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahagony topped with rich ultrared leather. The dark carpeting was discreetly sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square….”
Read the whole chapter. Hilarious – and apropos:
http://hitch14.tripod.com/chapter_25.htm
Merry Christmas to all. 42 is the answer.
Mark says:
December 23, 2011 at 5:33 am
As the density and speed of supercomputers increases, the models can compute on smaller and smaller volumetric areas and possibly use smaller time intervals. The idea that higher resolution makes the models more accurate is the driving force for greater computing power. While it is true that accuracy might be increased based upon the design of the model for individual time steps, the uncertainties regarding the validity of the model design creates an error delta in each time step.
The word you are looking above for is precision, not accuracy. This machine will allow them to make more precise calculations.
Their accuracy will depend entirely on whether what they are doing mimics reality in any way. Which, like you, I doubt.
Mooloo says:
“…The word you are looking above for is precision, not accuracy…”
I like that, Now they can make a more precise wrong answer.
ET hillbilly says:
December 23, 2011 at 3:01 pm
“At $0.05/kWh – which is less than the Lab paid for electricity when I worked there in the 1990′s – a 2.2 MW load would cost over $960,000 per year in energy costs. That does not include the cost of operating the heat removal system.”
Right – so this means > $1,000,000 in climate ca$h to run this behemoth for a select few climate elites to run their codes. This is what climate scientists call “shared sacrifice”.
Nonetheless…Merry Christmas to the CAGW cabal. I’m sure your wishes for more climate ca$h in 2012 will come true. At least until November…
R Barker says:
December 23, 2011 at 6:26 am
“Let’s see. 14 +26 = 40 cabinets @ur momisugly about 50kVa per cabinet. That is about 2 million watts of heat that has to be removed presumably with a large air conditioning system. About half of U S juice is coal powered. I wonder if any of those folks are just a tiny bit conflicted about running that thing”
They’re not a tiny bit conflicted about holding their “save the planet” meeting in the most exotic areas available, or spending a large fortune importing delicacies for consumption at the events.
So: No, I do not think they give a rats backside about running it. It will allow them to calculate the wrong answers to the right questions much faster.
Who knows, they may even be able to answer the age-old question: Is There A God (answer in a sealed email)
Whats the carbon footprint of this beast? So… whats the Principle Component of the system?
Anthony, I’m afraid I can’t let you print this … Hal.
What an asinine waste of resources. That computer could be doing protein-folding calculations and helping to save human lives, but NOOOOOOO. They have to use it to try to come up with a better propaganda model.
-jcr
Only two cabinets short of 42.
The comments at the end of the Atomic City Blog were pretty funny as well. NOT AGW sympathizers.
Anthony,
Brilliant!
So many smiles produced!
Apart from the wrong spelling……. You meant Gaia?
REPLY:Thanks! No that’s the correct spelling for the name of this computer, I just report the name they gave. – Anthony
All the Code Mann needs lol…
int i;
float AGW = 1.0;
bool AGW_OCCURING = true;
i = 2011;
float temp = 60.0;
while ( i < 2100 )
{
if ( AGW )
{
AGW = 1.05;
}
else
{
AGW = 1.0;
}
temp *= AGW;
}
u.k.(us) says:
December 23, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Gaea……..
We have almost learned how to survive Her temper tantrums.
Now, our hubris, assumes we can control Her ?
———
Yes, Gaea can be used to make the precise calculations to allow the “AlGore-rhythm method” to work to prevent climate change! The solution: stop impregnating the atmosphere with man-made CO2. Simples.
Merry Christmas Anthony, REP and the other moderators. Thanks for keeping the both the alarmists and us on our toes, and for another great year of fantastic posts at WUWT.
Billion Dollar Brain: spy thriller, somehow seems to fit here!
Speaking of turning the other cheek,
Anthony forgot the rectocranial serial desphincterizer stage, which is necessary in order to give the illusion that the other stages are operating normally
Bob Fernley-Jones says:
December 23, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Anthony,
Brilliant!
So many smiles produced!
Apart from the wrong spelling……. You meant Gaia?
REPLY:Thanks! No that’s the correct spelling for the name of this computer, I just report the name they gave. – Anthony
=======
Glad that is settled 🙂
One less thing.