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Foeschungszentrum Jülich - Research in Jülich 1_2013

Research in Jülich 1|20138 then there would be a danger that scien- tists could not meet important project deadlines and would not be able to pub- lish their results as planned. This is why the Jülich supercomputer experts operated JUGENE and the initial configuration of JUQUEEN in parallel for a time. IBM already supplied the first 8 out of a total of 28 racks in mid-April 2012. After they had been installed, JSC experts spent the next four weeks test- ing their function, performance and availability. “Some of the tests we used we devel- oped ourselves,” explains Klaus Wolkers- dorfer, head of High-Performance Com- puting Systems. After passing the tests with flying colours the eight racks were officially put into operation. Since the re- searchers and their projects now had more computing time at their disposal than had been available on the whole of JUGENE the latter was finally shut down on 31 July 2012. MORE COMPUTE NODES One of the scientists who used the initial configuration of JUQUEEN is Dr. Robert Jones. The physicist from Jülich’s Peter Grünberg Institute studies materi- als used for rewritable optical storage media such as DVD-RWs and Blu-ray discs and which are also of interest for future computer memories. Laser pulses can switch these phase-change materi- als back and forth between an ordered crystalline state and an unordered amor- phous state within a few billionths of a second. By means of simulations based on theories of quantum mechanics, Jones and his colleagues have already made significant improvements to the under- standing of the processes taking place in two important families of phase- change materials. The software used by Jones has been adapted by IBM, with the scientist’s assistance, for use on JUQUEEN. In this way, the Jülich physi- At the moment SimLabs exist for biology, plasma physics, particle physics, neuroscience, climate re- search, engineering, molecular physics and quantum chemistry. SimLabs are groups of JSC staff who have a university degree in the respective subject and also have research experience in simu- lation methods and algorithms for supercomputers. Their main task is to help other scientists from their discipline make optimum use of the supercomputers. Multidisciplinary assistance A glimpse into JUQUEEN’s inner workings during installation.

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