Coates (supercomputer)

Coates is a supercomputer installed at Purdue University on July 21, 2009. The high-performance computing cluster is operated by Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), the university's central information technology organization. ITaP also operates the Steele cluster and the DiaGrid distributed computing network.

Hardware

Coates consists of a maximum 1,280 HP dual quad-core compute nodes using 10,240 AMD processors and Cisco and Chelsio network equipment. It is expected to have a peak performance of 90 teraflops and rank in the top 50 on the November 2009 Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list. The cluster's nodes are arrayed in six logical sub-clusters each with different memory and storage configurations designed to meet the varying needs of the researchers using Coates.

Software

All nodes in the cluster have 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE), run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5), use PBSPro 9.2 for resource and job management and also have compilers and scientific programming libraries installed. It is the first internationally ranked academic supercomputer to be solely wired with 10GigE.

Cooling system

Coates has a heat-exchanging cooling system that recycles the hot water for use on the Purdue campus.

Construction

The cluster was largely built in less than four hours on July 21, 2009, by a team of more than 200 Purdue computer technicians and volunteers, including volunteers from Indiana University, the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Funding

The Coates supercomputer is a "community cluster" funded by hardware money from grants, faculty startup packages, institutional funds and other sources. Each faculty investor always has access to the nodes he or she purchases and potentially to more computing power when the nodes of other investors are idle. Unused, or opportunistic, cycles from Coates are made available to the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid and the Open Science Grid using Condor software.

Users

The Purdue departments and schools by which Coates is used vary broadly, including Aeronautics and Astronautics, Agronomy, Biology, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Communications, Computer Science, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Physics, the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory and Statistics.

DiaGrid

Coates is part of Purdue's distributed computing Condor flock, which is the largest publicly disclosed distributed computing system in the world and the center of DiaGrid, a nearly 27,000-processor (as of summer 2009) Condor-powered distributed computing network for research involving Purdue and partners at other campuses. DiaGrid and Purdue’s community clusters are administered by ITaP’s research and discovery arm the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing.

Naming

The Coates cluster is named for Clarence L. "Ben" Coates, who came to Purdue in 1973 to head the School of Electrical Engineering (now Electrical and Computer Engineering) where, for the next decade, he emphasized computer education and the development of computing facilities. Coates continues ITaP's practice of naming new supercomputers after notable figures in Purdue's computing history.

References

• "Coates". Purdue University. http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/userinfo/resources/coates. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• Tally, Steve (July 20, 2009). "Purdue builds Big Ten's biggest computer, again". Purdue University. http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009b/090720McCartneyCoates.html. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• Kline, Greg (July 22, 2009). "Encore to ITaP’s first supercomputer barn-raising is even better than the original". Purdue University. http://www.itap.purdue.edu/newsroom/detail.cfm?NewsID=1949. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• "Ben Coates". Purdue University. http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/userinfo/resources/coates/bio.cfm. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• "Clarence L. Coates". Purdue University. https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/People/Alumni/OECE/1993/coates.whtml. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• "Information Technology at Purdue". Purdue University. http://www.itap.purdue.edu. Retrieved August 25, 2009. 
• "Rosen Center for Advanced Computing". Purdue University. http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/. Retrieved August 25, 2009.