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Foeschungszentrum Jülich - Research in Jülich 1_2013

1|2013 Research in Jülich 7 COVER STORY | Supercomputing 7 Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC). The cooling water has to be demineralized to ensure that there is no damage to the fine water pipes supplying the computer chips. Jülich’s technicians have therefore constructed a closed water loop that pumps 150,000l of water per hour through the computer. NO TIME TO LOSE “The challenge was not so much the individual technical adaptations but rath- er the logistics and the very tight time schedule,” says Fieseler, head of Tech- nology at JSC. In addition to modifying the water cooling, the technicians laid 112 power connections for JUQUEEN as well as about 4,400 m of supply lines with a total weight of almost 8,000 kg. They also had to reinforce the floor of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. Every square metre of the normal raised floor Jülich’s new supercomputer can be used by scientists from all over Eu- rope. Two thirds of the computing time is allocated by two supercom- puting collaborations. One is the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS), an alliance of the three na- tional supercomputing centres in Jülich, Garching and Stuttgart. The other is the Partnership for Ad- vanced Computing in Europe (PRACE). The remaining third of the computing time is reserved for scientists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Jülich Aachen Re- search Alliance (JARA). Who’s allowed computing time on JUQUEEN? can bear a load of 500 kg. However, the cabinets housing JUQUEEN – referred to as racks by experts – with a floor space of 1.5 m2 each weigh 2,100 kg. “The schedule was drawn up with hardly any time margin to ensure that the changeover to JUQUEEN involved as little loss of computing time as possible,” says Fieseler. After all, scientists from Forschungszentrum Jülich, from the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, from Germany and all over Europe urgently require their allotted time on the computers at JSC (see also ‘Who’s allowed computing time on JUQUEEN?’). “The fact that we have applications from each of these levels which are assigned computing time on the basis of their scientific quality shows that this facility is in great demand,” says Dr. Norbert Attig, head of Application Support at JSC. If the supercomputers were to experience lengthy downtimes On the outside, Europe’s queen of computers is unspectacular and overweight. Each of the 28 racks weighs in at 2,100 kg. But inner values are what count. Institute Gallery

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