Parallel Computing Cluster

In addition to the lab facilities there is a 24-node high performance cluster (HPC) used by students and staff for teaching and research carried out by the department.

BEDFORDSHIRE STUDENTS PLUG INTO NEW SUPER-COMPUTER

COMPUTING students at the University of Bedfordshire are set to benefit with the arrival of a new High Performance Computer (HPC) – which enters us into the elite ranks of universities capable of offering this level of computing power .

The £50,000+ High Performance Computer is a towering six-and-a-half feet tall. It took two days to assemble and will take several weeks of fine tuning to enable it to reach its peak performance in its new home in the Department of Computing.

The HPC was supplied by Viglen Ltd who installed and commissioned it in its location within the department. The design of the HPC was a joint project between the University's Computing and Information systems department and Viglen to ensure it meet the departments requirements for a research and teaching tool.

Head of Department, Professor Carsten Maple, said: “The HPC will be able to carry out large number-crunching tasks quickly, so data can be analysed and the patterns and trends within it can be identified very early on.”

“The facility will allow students first hand experience of parallel and distributed programming. Such techniques are now common in areas from cancer research right through to multimedia entertainment. Parallel processing involves using many processors working together on one problem, hence coming to a faster solution.”

Geraint Williams, Technical Support Manager for the Department, agreed and said: “This will be invaluable in teaching students about computers and will allow them to experience high-level computing.”

Clustered processors are used in weather forecasting and Internet search engines. A standard computer could take hours, or even days, to search millions of websites, but a cluster of computers can retrieve such data in seconds; Google has in excess of 15,000 computers clustered together ”, said Geraint.

And he added: “As well as a first-rate teaching tool, the HPC will be used to carry out research by staff, for example, relating to 3G mobile phone technology. We are looking at effective network planning, which is used to provide an efficient network of mobile phone base stations for the third generation mobile phones.”

Media Arts students will also get to benefit from the exciting new computer. Cluster computing is used on the latest computer-generated animations, and has featured in the making of blockbuster films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo. The number of processors allows multiple frames of the film to be generated in parallel, speeding up the process of creating films.

The new HPC facilities supplements the Department of Computer and Information Systems £100,000 annual investment to ensure students have access to all the latest equipment and software.

If you would like additional information on the HPC facility please contact Geraint Williams on 01582 743289.

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Parallel Computing Cluster