Published on 05 April 2011

SEE Win Story

Supercomputers transform Romanian

advanced research
First BlueGene Supercomputer has been installed at West Univeristy in Timisoara
IBM provided and installed the first Blue Gene/P Supercomputer in Romania, at the West
University of Timisoara. The supercomputer will be used for advanced research and will
raise awareness of the Romanian academic performance on the world wide map. Romania
becomes a center for advanced research in SEE, having one of the most powerful
supercomputers in the SEE region, with more then 11 TFps.

About the client

The West University of Timisoara (founded in 1944) has around 26.000 students enrolled in
the educational programmes of its 11 faculties. According to the latest SIR World Report in
Physical Sciences, the West University of Timisoara is the Romanian institution with the
highest normalized impact indicator. A considerable contribution to this status has been
provided by the universities computer scientists and mathematicians.

About the deal

The project mainly goal is to set-up an Advanced Research Institute for Environment
ICAM (building, labs equipments, software and research teams) with a research
infrastructure at international standards. One important part of ICAM infrastructure, which
will be managed by the Centre in Informatics and Mathematics, will be the High
Performance Computing Lab.

The Advanced Research Institute for Environment based on IBM

SuperComputer will be able to:
a) to focus, integrate and develop the exiting research centres from West University;
b) to integrate theoretical research, applied research and technological transfer;
c) to ensure a multi- and interdisciplinary approach (environment sciences, environment
physics, environment chemistry, informatics and mathematics, bioinformatics, environment
economics);

d) to ensure the facilities, equipment and training for competitiveness and international
visibility of research results of academic community members;
e) to stimulate technological transfer;
f) support and participate in the development of poles of excellence which focus on applied
research in environment protection.

What business challenge did the client need to solve?

High Performance and High Scalable Computing solution in order to sustain the
researchers needs in present and future. The solution requested for this lab was a
Supercomputer able to provide more than 11 TFps, proven to be present in Top500.org
and Green500.org. It had to meet requirements of the high performance computing,
scalability, application in the required research areas and meet the HPC Green Computing
and open standards. Also the site conditions are limited by space, power and cooling
facilities.

Value of the deal & Date of Signing

Contract signed in 30.03.2011, TCV was 1 Million

IBM solution

Solution consist in:

one BlueGene/P rack with 4096 cores and 4TB RAM, 32 I/O nodes and 13Tfps
4 power servers p520
2 DS3524and EXP3000 totally 2x48 SAS HDD

One Cisco Nexus 7010 Switch with 64x10GbE and 98x1GbE

SUSE Linux for Power and BG/P specific software

The solution is interconnected with the whole customer IT services and infrastructure, and it
is a platform for developing the biggest Computing centre in Romania accessible to
academic research projects.
How will the solution help to solve client's business challange?
Better and smarter activities by better integration, proven solution in WW research institutes
large community of users, already tested and implemented research models. This solution
opens lots of doors and opportunities for West University of Timisoara to big research
projects on European and Global teaming
The main advantages of using a supercomputing Blue Gene / P are:
- Ultra-scalability , unmatched performance
- Saving space occupied by the supercomputer
- Very low power consumption requirements
- High availability
Users can access very easy the system and with minimum of training they are able to run
their jobs from public internet - based on user authorisation.

Business Partner: Eta2U is our T1 Business partner that delivered the solution and builds
the required facilities to meet the technical requirements.
Experts on this topic

FLORIN MANAILA Advisory Accredited Architect, IBM Sales & Distribution, TSS

SORIN SERB POWER Systems Sales Manager, IBM Sales & Distribution, STG
Sales

Profile:West University of Timisoara

The West University of Timisoara was founded in 1944 as a classic public university meant
to be representative for the West part of Romania and it has around 26000 students
nowadays enrolled in the educational programmes of its eleven faculties. According to the
latest SIR World Report in Physical Sciences, the West University of Timisoara is the
Romanian institution with the highest normalized impact indicator. A considerable
contribution to this status has been provided by the universities computer scientists and
mathematicians. The Faculty of Mathematics was one of the first faculties founded within
the university, in 1948. The currently named Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
hashave two departments: Mathematics and Computer Science, the last one dating from
1971. Two research laboratories, one for Artificial Intelligence and one for Parallel and
Distributed Computing have been established 1994 in the context of orientation of the
research team towards these two topics. A Centre of Research in Computer Science was
officially established in 1999 and recognized at national level as research unit in 2001. The
research team experience is related to the participation in the last two decades in about fifty
national and international research projects granted in the frame of Romanian research
programmes, but also Austrian and French ones, as well as in the frame of World Bank and
NATO, European Space Agency, European Commission FP5, FP6 and FP7, Phare and
Tempus programmes.
Website:http://www.uvt.ro/en/