A Linux cluster supercomputer, built for the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2002, has become the third fastest supercomputer in the world.

According to the 21st TOP500 supercomputing list, the Linux Networx Evolocity system, known as MCR, can process 7.6 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) running the Linpack benchmark, and is the fastest Linux cluster in the world.

It is the highest ranking ever for a Linux cluster, according to Erich Strohmaier, computer scientist at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and co-founder of the TOP500 list.

"Only a year and a half ago, MCR would have ranked as the fastest supercomputer in the world with this performance, which gives a good indication of the power of this machine," he said.

The Linux Networx system is also the fastest Intel-based machine ever built. It harnesses 2,304 2.4GHz Xeon processors and is connected using the Quadrics interconnect. LLNL uses the Linux Networx ICE Box cluster appliance for system management.

LLNL is using the cluster to conduct experiments in global climate modelling, material properties, earthquakes and other large-scale, high-performance simulations of physical phenomena.

The system specs include:

• 7.6 teraflops Linux cluster of Dual Intel 2.4GHz Xeon processors.
• 4.6TB of aggregate memory.
• 115.2TB of aggregate local disk space.
• 1,154 total nodes plus separate hot spare clusters and development clusters.
• 2,304 Intel 2.4GHz Xeon processors.
• Sub 1U Evolocity node for 1,116 compute nodes.
• LinuxBIOS on all nodes.
• Linux Networx ICE Box Management Appliance.
• Blue Arc Si7500 Storage Systems with a combined storage capacity of 115TB.
• Cluster File Systems' Lustre Open Source cluster wide file system.

The 21st TOP500 supercomputing list can be found here.

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