University of Cape Town Joins International Search

"Grid" technology allows university to use latest high performance computing technology from Sun Microsystems to drive research in fundamental particle physics while providing a shared resource for use by other industry and research organisations

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has just installed a new high performance computing system based on a cluster of 16 Sunfire servers from Sun Microsystems. This "supercomputer" is connected into a grid of research organisations in Europe, the US and the Far East, allowing scientists from UCT to contribute to the high-profile ALICE research collaboration that is studying the fundamental nature of matter. Because of the grid technology, this new system can also easily be used by other organisations as a powerful computing resource. Using high-speed network links, they can buy capacity on it to do advanced analytical processing for applications ranging from industrial research to weather prediction.

In the ALICE collaboration, UCT is a research partner in a group of institutions that will analyse the results of experiments to be done in the Large Hadron Collider, a giant multibillion Euro apparatus 100m below the ground at the CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) facility in Switzerland. This device smashes together heavy ions to break them down into their elementary constituents (quarks and gluons) to form a Quark Gluon Plasma. This plasma is the state of matter the universe is theorised to have been in around a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, the start of our physical universe. Studying this Quark Gluon Plasma allows physicists to find clues to the nature of matter itself, with wide-reaching scientific and technology implications.

"In the 100 years since Albert Einstein's special relativity took over from classical physics, the world of research has changed," explains UCT's Professor Jean Cleymans. "We can now use incredibly powerful computer systems to allow us to study and model complex phenomena at the most basic levels of existence. This new Sun cluster allows us to become key members of the ALICE collaboration, which ensures South Africa keeps its place in the centre of the world's scientific and research community, but also gives students here in Cape Town the tools to do cutting-edge research of their own."

The high performance computing cluster is made up of a rack of 16 Sunfire V20z servers interconnected via dual gigabit Ethernet channels, with each machine having a 64-bit 1.8GHz AMD processor with a gigabyte of RAM. The machines are running Linux, with the Open Source clustering software that is specified by CERN to allow it to be connected into the grid. It was implemented by Breakpoint Solutions, Sun's most prolific Education partner in the Western Cape. Both Sun Microsystems and Professor Jean Cleymans applauded Breakpoint Solutions for their assistance.

"This project with UCT has been very exciting for our team, helping implement the first grid installation of its type in South Africa. Sun is a leader in computing systems for education and research organisations, and we took a decision as a company to give UCT our fullest support, both from a pricing point of view and resources to help in the installation. We're very proud to be part of this project," concludes Johan du Toit, regional manager for Sun Microsystems.