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4.0.2-THE
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UK
5.99 USA $12.99
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/
&
E
a
LINUX CD
GNU generation
DEVELOP
Hîgh Performance
Pamela Jones
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ith
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JM
s
Printed
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the
Issue 58
UK
5.99
AUS $11.99
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00
try
Please ask gour newsagent
1/7
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a
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High Performance Computing
Samuel Palmer investigates how Linux on the SGI Altix
questions
in
quantum physics
to
broken bones
Hîgh
Performance
Computîng
for the
real world
2/7
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1994 Silicon Graphics Inc now SGI was famous for producing the machinery that was used
create the
and
that
ran
loose
Rex
Park
Jurassic
Procompsognathus
Stephen
Spielberg'
Velociraptors Tyrannosaurus
n
to
,
,
,
in
s
.
,
These machines were also used for the special effects
which semi-metallic
James Cameron' Terminator
Arnold Schwarzenegger came back from future where people like him had risen
power Purveyor funky
machines
that
were
never
rince
the
mid
1980s
SGI
has
fridge-sized
knowingly beige
always been the
s
a
in
2
in
,
a
to
.
of
,
,
(
)
advanced 3D visualisation systems Back
the days when Unix
was king special effects houses simply couldn' function without an SGI compositing and animation machine sitting
fat pipe
1996 Silicon Graphics
on the end
Hollywood Alongside Cray Research which merged with SGI
some
the most exciting
offered superb styling and unprecedented supercomputing performance delivered by
company
choice for those seeking HPC solutions
of
or
.
in
t
,
in
of
a
to
.
,
,
of
older SGI machines have since become classics which still see heavy use today
architectures around Plenty
testament
the build quality
such systems and the huge interest which these intriguing machines generated
.
of
to
THE RISE AND RISE
when the year on year growth
be
the company was estimated
40 per cent
US$ 2000 million
found
per year and left
Netscape Communications which
its turn the new darling
became
Silicon Valley until its flame was
extinguished by Microsoft the
the late 90s
browser wars
of
Silicon Graphics was founded
1981 by James Clark the same
in
to
H
or
,
,
who later went on
create Netscape Communications
and the world' first commercial
Jim Clark
to
to
,
,
in
s
Web browser The objective
Clark along with the colleagues
and students from Stanford University
.
of
,
at
of
in
.
of
The first machines that Silicon
who formed the
company the outset was
create advanced computers for
.
running VAX but soon the
company evolved its own range
the companyhighend
computers and workstations
for visualising data the advanced
aerospace and automotive design
industries for scientific modelling
for interpretation
reservoir data
from oit fields and for creating
cinematic effects
seems unlikely but Clark
daims
have been hoodlum
during his early years and wasn'
until after he joined the US Navy
17 that he worked his way up the
academic ladder gaining PhD
computing the University
Utah
become Professor
Stanford
the late 70s where he
invented
geometric engine'
revolutionise
which was
of
early 90s which were surely the
or
,
,
computing for
golden years
both SGI and those who could
afford
play with their hugely
expensive systems However as
a4vanced 3D technologies filtered
down
the high street consumer
SGI began
)ose momentum
The decision
move into the low
end Intel-based workstation
market which incidentally marked
SGI irst involvement with Linux
cost SGI dearly Loyal customers
of
a
of
,
to
to
.
,
,
to
to
in
isn' the only company
have
the penguin
sought salvation
but few others have embraced
t
in
/
such verve
vigour As always
the proof
the open source
pudding very much the
eating and with quiet
determination and little hype SGI
have given great deal back
the
,
.
.
It
a
lengthy involvement
with Linux and open source
allowed SGl
bring the compte Altix
market record time
t
at
in
,
of
at
,
incorporating graphics software
into the hardware
enhance the
to
processing speed The chip was
employed by Silicon Graphics
.
to
to
produce the first virtual computer
enable engineers designers and
artists
pickup rotate and walk
,
machines that ran Unix on
Motorola microprocessors To
illustrate how things have changed
over less than two decades the
Silicon Graphics 3XX30 Unix
workstation with 68030
Motorola microprocessor was
considered powerful enough
support complete 3D animation
were put off by this move and
new clients couldn' justify paying
SGI prices for commodity
hardware
the came time the
and rendering package with two
300MB hard disks
create
could be thrown together
supercomputer rivalling costly
Big Iron systems SGI was held
.
,
a
(
,
)
to
a
.
But Silicon Graphics didn'
become essential
3D graphics
t
,
through complex 3D objects
virtual space
real time
environment Clark stayed with
Silicon Graphics through the glory
the late' 80s and early' 90s
years
in
to
in
of
until the introduction
the 4D
when the switch was made
MIPS RISC which became the
,
to
a
to
in
,
,
.
a
series
to
,
s
.
HPC scene was changing
the
dramatically The arrivai
HPC
Beowulf cluster approach
meant that piles
COTS
Commodity Off The Shelf PCs
.
of
,
.
,
,
to
to
a
.
of
the cuit
at
of
BogoMIPS
is
,
)
the mercy
to
,
to
(
.
which proves that open source
development and project
management principles do work
and that Linux really the bees
knees when coures
HPC
These days SGI focus has
changed Although the emphasis
,
is
it
AND
RISE
AGAIN
However given the huge amount
press coverage and healthy list
,
of
of
,
to
of
of
3/7
Copyright (Linux User Magazine N° 58) No reproduction without authorisation
.
the work which has gone into
scale
the
coaxing Linux
enormous Altix will find its way
back into community projects Yet
perhaps their greatest contribution
the community the Altix itself
At
,
,
familiar architecture for Silicon
kernel debugging and profiling
course plenty
projects And
t
of
a
.
is
,
to
,
.
kernel with XFS and greatly
assisted hardcore developers with
,
a
to
in
to
a
in
.
,
a
released under similar licence
And SGI have contributed some
the
seriously cutting edge tech
in
to
,
graphics rendering The geometric
engine was specialised processor
for generating 3D graphics
in
implementation readily available
and GLX Performer and Inventor
,
at
to
,
community
recentyears
be
OpenGL always going
tough cookie on the licensing
front but SGI do seem
have
made steps
the right direction
with an open source
to
,
a'
.
,
,
to
d
a
of
A
,
a
,
GNU Linux and free software with
,
f
s
is
of
it
to
,
,
to
.
to
,
in
,
s
"
to
of
.
is
in
,
,
,
of
clients which the Altix 3000
family has garnered over the fast
two three years SGI seems set
for major reversai fortune
And
part such success thanks
SGI lengthy involvement with
Linux and open source which has
alloweel' GI
bring the complex
market
record time SGI
Altix
of
.
to
rendering three-dimensional
graphics This became the
Graphics machines during the
boom ears the late 80s and
to
Graphics built were graphics
be
display monitors designed
plugged into DEC machines
to
,
speciality
.
of
to
.
s
.
stil on high-performance
)
is
N° and issue date : 58 - 15/02/2006
Circulation : 35000
Periodicity : Monthly
linuxuser.pdf
Web Site: http://www.linuxuser.co.uk
computing there
concentration on the storage
visualisation and manipulation
is
large data set Life science apps
and simulations can push data sets
Terabyte levels which means
and every piece
the design bears this out
that memory
key issue Thanks
the lightning fast NUMAlink
interconnect fabric processors can
get on with what they do best
rather than getting bogged down
with costly memory management
THE QUANTUM LEAP
a
,
of
a
vast banks
technical data
of
of
to
It'
is
s
specialised market which SGI
has very little competition This
in
is
least partly because expectations
are higher The applications have
.
moved on and the demands
market have become more
the
of
.
.
the
latency
few hundred nanoseconds
Because applications like these
are commonplace ait other UK
At
processors simply won' be able
get any smaller ait least not
without suffering too great
t
to
of
a
.
worrisome
.
.
performance This can be
in
a
technology product
to
providers who bank on their
This was the easiest installation
would offer other pluses We
wanted system that could bridge
our mid-range clusters with those
the national facilities
use
'
a
tradeoff
a
universities selecting system with
shared-memory architecture
,
a
,
,
a
to
"
,
shared memory possible enabling
with
.
codes that need
or
memory.
quantum limit imposed by the
laws
that point
physics
of
These
very fast interprocessor
communications and access
,
,
"
.
,
In
,
memory access
Roemer explains
"
,
are large-scale shared-memory
the next decade ever-shrinking
microprocessors will bump into the
to
of
"
of
,
applications
.
a
.
in
benefit
"
.
issues This fabric makes global
sophisticated And so have the
machines Typically high-end SGI
Altix machines are located
R&D departments
faster science
,
.
.
at
"
.
,
Page : 30
Size : 90 %
"
in
at
,
ve ever worked on The guys
l'
.
and turned
literally turned up wheeled the hardware
There wasn' much more
thon that
on
in
it
,
,
.
"
it
t
to
manufacturing and research
institutes where high-performance
computing and data-intensive
processing and simulation
,
is
necessity
a
.
INTO THE COSMOS
products growing not just smaller
but increasingly more powerful
When dealing with hardware as
complex as the Altix which throws
.
the University
cutting edge CPU and tricky
shared memory issues into the
mix
work
probably easiest
backwards from the kind
applications which the Altix system
has been designed for And again
all about coping with vast
.
,
to
s
.
of
components such as CPU
interconnect and
memory
storage are packaged into modular
bricks And these
components
vast machines can support
,
1
O
/
,
,
,
.
or
,
hundreds
such bricks NUMA
of
.
stands for non-uniform memory
difficult concept get
detail but which
grips with
basically means that processes
access
a
raw data Huge data
sets are everywhere and any
nanotechnology
application which attempts
simulate how our
compute
surroundings and internats will
behave
any level going
bump up against the constraints
imposed by enormous amounts
better understand transport
processes that are relevant
future computing applications
for generating nanotechnology
.
to
to
in
,
to
or
is
to
(
,
)
.
to
of
in
.
,
derent
threads
or
processes can
thus easily deal with large data
sets without elaborate message
,
passing rituals
manage data
having
smaller chunks
to
or
,
in
in
of
CPU brick
,
you'
re
looking
at
a
very
s
groups But solving disordered
.
quantum models physics problems
And
requires memory lots
that has proved too much for the
s
.
,
of
memory whic' processes can
the words
SGI
easily access
the Altix all about delivering
.
In
is
of
,
expanding the facilitys existing
cluster Beowulf environments
would not address the next phase
their HPC needs These are
problems where adding more
processors just doesn' provide any
"
of
of
,
.
t
4/7
Copyright (Linux User Magazine N° 58) No reproduction without authorisation
.
Faced with new classes
memory hungry scientific
applications and ever increasing
data sets CSC scientiste and
administrators knew that simply
,
to
"
to
,
"
vendors and SGI revealed
a
performance advantage for
the SGI Altix The Itanium
dualedged
"
.
2
processor outperformed the
competition our numerical
in
system was
,
.
,
task farm
s
in
see the whole
picture which
computing terms
maps right into huge amounts
a
"
,
CSC existing 128-processor
Beowulf cluster and 62-processor
.
easily You need
.
"
computing benchmark says
Ismail and the fast SGI NUMAlink
interconnect used the Altix
,
to
it
of
of
,
,
of
it'
in
And given that the Altix crams
local memory per
an awful lot
a
,
,
.
"
,
)
,
of
.
or
in
the life sciences physics and
astrophysics boils down
working
with information which simply
cannot be broken down into small
chunks Complex causalities
involved
say analysing crash
test data cannot be teased apart
s
"
centre specialising
centralised
high performance computing that
services 35
Warwick' mostly
graduate academic research
to
,
"a
through predicting weather
patterns and the behaviour
(
.
to
university' Centre for Scientific
research
Computing CSC
of
Intel Itanium processors and
outfitted with TB memory
Warwick he says aimed
provide
high level compatibility with
64-bit Linux systems like Newton
Once we decided that we
wanted large shared-memory
system says Ismail we set out
buy the highest-performance
architecture system we could
find. Benchmark evaluations
involving systems from other
of
s
,
is
,
1
data From investigations into the
the cosmos
past and future
NUMA was designed
overcome the scalability limits
an SMP architecture
which all
CPUs compete for the same shared
memory bus With NUMA
to
It'
at
,
,
of
.
2
to
says Rudolf Roemer Physicist and
Associate Director ait the
of
complex engineering structures
right down simulating chemical
and molecular events and
all
analysing DNA structures
about large data sets
Much
the computing work
which goes into pushing forward
of
.
We can use these studies
to
running on the Altix can take
global shared
close
how things
memory
work under an SMP Symmetric
Multi Processing system except
that memory access times are not
consistent for each CPU
.
"
,
at
or
,
to
devices powered by
s
.
,
advantage
of
it'
of
s
designing new generations
miniature processors and other
key
.
quantities
of
It
,
of
Modular hardware means that
systems can be future proofed
suit
adaptable and easily tailored
the client' needs The NUMAfIex
the Altix means that core
design
to
solve the
to
equations for disordered quantum
s
,
BEYOND MEMORY
,
sounds esoteric but
systems
research like this may provide the
to
it'
,
at
Warwick
of
researchers are toiling
a
recalls Matt Ismail computer
manager CSC who says
Warwick wanted
expand its
collaboration with such facilities as
the University
Manchester'
Computer Services for Academic
Research
CSAR The most
CSAR
the
powerful resource
Newton supercomputer an SGI
Altix 3700 system powered by 512
At
"
,
"
,
in
a
huge contributory
that the fact that
factor Add
many the large HPC installations
the UK are based on Altix
supercomputers and the choice
.
to
of
in
,
was easy.
"
SOLAR WEATHER
So
turns out was installation
the new 56-processor 112GB Altix
it
,
of
,
,
3700 system and 4TB SGI
InfiniteStorage TP9500 disk array
.
N° and issue date : 58 - 15/02/2006
Circulation : 35000
Periodicity : Monthly
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Web Site: http://www.linuxuser.co.uk
Page : 31
Size : 80 %
High Performance Co' puting
'i
^
Patient Specific Prosthesis
Analysis uses biomechanical
simulate how
algorithms
medical implant performs
inside the human body
Simulations are based on an
individual patient' unique
pathology and anatomy
a
to
.
s
X-ray image
of
an immediately post-operative implanted hip
Unu.User
5/7
Copyright (Linux User Magazine N° 58) No reproduction without authorisation
&
DeVeloper
31
N° and issue date : 58 - 15/02/2006
Circulation : 35000
Periodicity : Monthly
linuxuser.pdf
Web Site: http://www.linuxuser.co.uk
"
l'
metal- researchers
This was the easiest installation
ve ever worked on
no stranger
says Ismail
"
,
HPC and Linux
to
includes capabilities and
.
In
s
learn more
doing so they hope
about how solar weather effects
the earth' magnetic field
to
'
.
s
,
in
problems
t
.
"
it
a
in
,
a
,
to
to
It'
It'
copies
large multi-terabyte
data sets
supports independent scaling
With
processors memory and
That' just the kind
forward
thinking that could help
researchers
the University
Warwick continue
scale their
research-from the quantum
new
physics that may give birth
miniature processors
greater
it
of
,
.
,
of
I
O
.
,
/
,
Altix systems supporting up
512 Intel Itanium processors
SGI
2
to
a
in
of
of
to
a
a
to
supercluster-Warwick' CSC has
is
s
at
in
single system image-and
thousands more
HPC
,
when only single processor on
the Altix used for computing
a
create multiple
to
"
,
,
"
,
without having
in
is
to
is
to
a
)
incorporating SGI InfiniteStorage
shared filesystem CXFS which
would provide researchers with
instant data access and sharing
among systems on the SAN
any direction we need
says
Ismail who points out that Altix
.
"
of
new Altix
t
to
"
,
s
a
won' stand still "A key advantage
the Altix that we can scale
a
.
a
,
.
of
(
nome applications-current
must communicate efficiently
Interprocessor communication
speed vital here explains
Roemer who points out that even
to
of
become the backbone
storage area network SAN
,
t`oemselves across processors that
s
,
and SGI storage solution they
recognise that their resource needs
of
"
,
TERABYTES OFTERABYTES
While not as memory-hungry as
computations require only about
dozen Gigabytes
memory
these adaptive codes redistribute
at
.
,
.
As pleased as Warwick
researchers are with their
.
,
to
of
"
of
to
,
management The guys literally
turned up wheeled the hardware
and turned on There wasn'
much more
than that.
Ismail who holds doctorate
chemistry and previously was
research fellow
Warwick also
finds managing the Altix system
be simple compared
Linux
clusters:
like comparing the
administration
one machine
administering say few
hundred
an order
work
magnitude easier
with system like Altix than
Beowulf cluster.
studies require storage
dozens
terabytes he explains The
TP9500 says Ismail may someday
performance improvements ideal
for enabling Altix users
solve
their biggest compute and data
to
of
system deployment and
it
Warwick are
at
create large-scale
simulations
the sun' corona
working
,
Page : 32
Size : 85 %
s
to
a
,
Both images show the cross-section
of
an uncemented femoral component
implanted
in
femur The
a
Before
"
.
Bone Remodelling
image shows dense
"
cortical bone dark grey for the entire
(
outer layer
)
the femur The Alter
"
of
.
Bone Remodelling
image shows bone
"
resorption lighter greys and bone
(
)
deposition darker greys after an
(
)
extended period
implantation
of
.
(
greyscale represents bone density
Courtesy
all
The Altix advantage has made
the difference for researchers
these problems the overall Altix
system still performs 40 times
like Roemer who recently used
of
s
s
.
,
of
.
.
,
and his research team can now
It
"
of
of
,
re
of
fields and electrically conducting
media such as plasmas
molten
atmospheric data.
Roemer says physics researchers
Warwick reviewing wide-angle
3TB
re
a
at
result things work the way you
think they should work. The CSC
"
of
surveys
a
,
of
"
plans
move
to
/
to
now that
adding
Novell SUSE Linux
nterprise Server
9
SLES9 also
(
SLES9
supports
ProPack an SGI toolset that
,
to
the universe are also
the storage demands
of
Dublin
the infinite
of
space
of
.
CONNECTED TO THE HIP
BO1E
The Trinity Centre for
Bioengineering
Trinity College
Dublin was
at
University
established
,
of
2002 Its research
which has its roots the
university' Mechanical
in
.
in
s
Engineering department -focuses
on developments
orthopaedic
in
and other medical devices;
biological algorithms for
simulations such as bone
remodelling the process by which
bones are continually renewed
and tissue engineering-how
(
);
.
to
Studying images taken every
second they try
determine
what changes occur across
grow biological replacements for
various parts
the body
specific time domain
particular for its strength
to
,
)
,
a
6/7
Copyright (Linux User Magazine N° 58) No reproduction without authorisation
"
,
.
t
.
or
we'
of
In
,
,
in
.
in
"
SGI ProPack
single system
Centre for Atmospheric Research
the US notes Roemer and
soon we' expecting delivery
running an optimised version
standard Linux implementation As
the
limited
quantum physics
field
magnetohydrodynamics
the interaction
magnetic
to
"'
with Altix and
of
.
.
Too many vendors take
commodity hardware and they just
put the Linux on he says But
"
.
is
its kind
largest diagonalization
ever achieved The benefits aren'
says Roemer
,
a
,
a
.
or
reliable
"
'
matrix size 4000 times
that size within days
the
achieve
to
We have people
who work with the National
"
is
1
.
to
a
a
in
"I
a
,
it
,
measuring million by million
numbers size This now takes
just hours on the Altix and Roemer
.
and reliable 64-bit industry
standard implementation
Linux
find reassuring
buy
something from company that
has software expertise and
populated mostly by zeros Three
years ago researchers like Roemer
spent weeks computing matrix
expanse
in
,
University
,
f
understanding
.
a
growth its storage
environment Currently used as
direct attached storage resource
for the Altix server the SGI
TP9500 disk array can grow from
its current 4TB capacity
32TB
is
,
s
a
1
is
Beowulfclusters Helpful too
the
Altix system' proven track record
to
of
,
a
of
faster than the CSC older
,
the system' memory
run an interactive diagonalization
huge so-called sparse matrix
numerical analysis matrix
107GB
plenty
computing headroom
The university also laying
foundation for possible future
,
)
Trinity Centre for
of
Bioengineering
wpMWV ,rYW
The
"
.
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of
The Centre
.
is
known
in
in
N° and issue date : 58 - 15/02/2006
Circulation : 35000
Periodicity : Monthly
linuxuser.pdf
Web Site: http://www.linuxuser.co.uk
can run these
couple hours
entirely
memory and run several
simulations concurrently across
multiple CPUs We' ve also
researchers have used multi-body
bones
computer models
impacted by cars
investigate
the injuries caused The Eure
NCAP safety tests now include
measure
pedestrian safety but
in
a
of
,
in
of
,
to
.
increased some
.
sizes
)
a
five and see these
growing even larger
give more
realistic geometry which much
Gloser
the patients actual
by
factor
our mode
of
a
of
of
,
this needs substantially more
research especially into risk
posed by the increasing
to
a
is
,
to
"
proportion
anatomy.
We' working with several
Ireland
orthopaedic surgeons
.
re
s
,
to
in
using their new computational
get the technique adopted as part
their standard preoperative
planning procedure They' be
able
take the patients medical
us so we can
image send
convert into finite element
model simulate the implant the
develop tests that
accurately model the impact
the vehicle on human being-to
power
of
ll
.
a
assist with the design
more
pedestrian-friendly cars and other
motor vehicles
We' also one
the few
teams looking
cardiovascular
stents-the devices used
treat
arterial blockages and reopen an
artery that has been closed off by
plaque formation concludes
Alex Lennon We have people
working on modelling arterial
tissue which often has an adverse
reaction whereby the plaque will
reform due
damage induced
by the stent; and project
optimise the stent design
relation
shape plastic
eformation etc This involves
lot mechanical simulation
terms contact and non-linear
to
it
of
,
a
.
,
University
re
,
of
Warwick
of
"
to
transition-Courtesy
phase
of
use and
surgeon wishes
survival
estimate its probability
optimising the outcome and
quantum
a
ai
to
,
benefiting patients surgeons and
healthcare organisations by
lowering the total colt each
an order
the
magnitude
our computational
complexity
work continues John Britton
Patient Specific
One example
of
,
a
who
addition
Initially we used desktop PCs
for this but found we were
constrained by the amount
computing power we could bring
"
of
bear on
We therefore set up
small PC cluster which although
it
a
.
was low cost wasn'
t
at
to
to
a
renewing itself
response
altered loading; and
micro level
a
in
a
is
to
in
at
to
,
,
with the behaviour the
individual struts that make up
finite element
spongy bone
:
of
at
,
to
a
,
of
,
hip replacement and
have managed
combine our
particularly
elegant solution explains Dr John
Britton Research Fellow from the
,
,
re
particular
it
,
is
to
in
.
at
.
computational project for which
we' ve spent over decade
developing core biomechanical
algorithms that can simulate how
medical implant performs inside
the body We' looking
a
,
to
re
,
.
.
Another area we' looking
bone remodelling We' ve
model
developed algorithms
this both
the level
an entire
bone profile such as how femur
"
in
Prosthesis Analysis an advanced
,
,
"
procedure.
.
,
is
"
of
"
to
,
"
"
experimental
projects are focusing more and
more on computational work
in
,
in
of
of
at
,
orthopaedics and now employs
more than dozen principal
investigators and 30 researchers
to
of
to
An electron
high-fronted
of
vehicles such as SUV'
The Centres team are therefore
"
it
Page : 34
Size : 90 %
.
.
a
of
A
in
of
"
.
,
The team
,
using its new computational power
that accurately mode the impact
vehicle on
Centre for Bioengineering We
recently secured some significant
"
.
)
funding and decided
this
to
purchase
of
to
of
run simulations
performance computing system
We wanted single image solution
for ease use; evaluated
algorithms
based on an individual patients
unique pathology and anatomy
model
cm3 volume
spongy bone
high resolution
requires several million elements
number
simulate several years
use
the
implant and predict whether
hence the requirement for HPC
model
.
a
of
a
tenders; and SGI
emerged as the preferred
supplier. Dr Alex Lennon
of
to
of
of
not
Research Fellow
the Centre
added What swung the order
SGI way was their depth
support and proven expertise
bioengineering and
biomechanics-including the
applications we use.
As part
the tender process
we provided finite element
analysis benchmark test for which
SGI result was by far the fastest
all the systems we evaluated.
The Centre subsequently
purchased an SGI Altix 350 server
with 32 processors 128GB RAM
at
,
will perform satisfactorily
given the patients lifestyle.
"
it
,
in
"
"
of
a
s
"
of
,
'
.
The Altix will enable
to
jump
part
is
"
REMEMBERING THE
several experiments investigating
how bone changes
response
osteoporosis and we' simulating
the results these
produce
in
"
re
of
memory meant the mesh density
model
was much lower and we had an
We'
,
around 10 ,000
elements
finite element model
our advanced algorithms
Some
in
of
a
.
of
,
such as those simulating bone
remodelling and damage
it
to
a
.
its effects on humans
of
also looking
re
to
.
of
if
of
in
is
,
a
.
at
of
a
of
,
is
to
a
the Centres ongoing
modelling pedestrian
impact by motor vehicles The
One
of
projects
is
.
to
of
of
of
PEDESTRIAN SOLUTIONS
of
the fastest growing invasive
the world so this
procedures
obviously big area for people
doing simulations as well With
our existing models we' ve been
limited
the
looking
mechanical effects
opening
stent within an artery but one
the big growth areas the use
reduce the effects
drugs
stents-which adds whole new
order
magnitude complexity
the simulation We believe
though that with our new HPC
resource we could start modelling
to
at
,
7/7
Copyright (Linux User Magazine N° 58) No reproduction without authorisation
a
the effects
different drug treatments on bone
see they make the
properties
bones stronger and their level
effect on the bone.
,
,
to
"
accumulation have very non-linear
behaviour and was taking
run each
couple
days
simulation But with the Altix vie
to
,
s
,
of
"
at
Comparing the Altix with the PC
cluster the cluster' limited
re
a
any kind.
Stent procedures are one
an EU-funded
of
ANATOMY
of
us
This
if
,
to
.
upper limit
,
a
project looking treatments for
osteoporosis The Centre has
"
of
,
,
to
it.
"
s
,
50-100 ,000 element models
which although they can be run
on PC really need HPC you'
do parametric study
going
of
"
or
,
a
at
,
.
material behaviours and the sorts
1
of
,
of
"
and 2.4TB disk
a
a
use part
dedicated high
a
develop tests
human being
to
is
of
.
these effects as well
"