Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems

Spotlight on Technology - Raptor Cluster

CAVS's parent center the High Performance Computing Collaboratory has just installed a 2,048 processor computing cluster, named "Raptor," which is more than four times faster than the most powerful system currently housed at the site, an IBM model called "Maverick."

"It is anticipated that this computer will be among the 100 most powerful computers in the world when the next Top 500 Supercomputer Sites list is released next month by the University of Tennesseeand the University of Mannheim (Germany)," said Colin Scanes, MSU's vice president for research and economic development.

"The system also likely will be among the 15 most powerful computers at any university in the country," he added.

The new high-performance computing cluster--which connects 512 smaller computers together--uses servers made by Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc. Each of the model X2200 M2 servers has two Opteron 2218 processors manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices, headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Because existing computers currently used by HPC2 are operating at capacity, the Raptor is expected to greatly strengthen the MSU research unit's efforts in solving problems related to automotive crash simulations, weather and ocean modeling, missile aerodynamics, and the design of more efficient jet engines.

To read more about the Raptor - more