CSIRO seeks HPC cluster provider

CSIRO is seeking a provider to refresh its IBM High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster.

Its Advanced Scientific Computing (ASC) Compute Cluster, called 'burnet', was located at the Bureau of Meteorology Building in Victoria and supported by 25 ASC staff.

Burnet comprised an IBM eServer Cluster 1350 system of 123 nodes, a majority of which operated on Intel Xeon processors.

There were four main hardware configurations of burnet's general nodes, with the memory of each node ranging from 2GB to 8GB.

CSIRO expected the new system to provide nodes with more memory than other available systems, and a global file system across the cluster.

The successful proposal would feature a Linux cluster that was compatible with CSIRO's specialised software, and offer a minimum three year warranty.

According to tender documents, proposals would be evaluated on how well the system performed against benchmarks while meeting CSIRO's business and functionality requirements.

CSIRO also would consider power efficiency, technology, a provider's ability to deliver to schedule, and price.

A budget of $840,000 was allocated to the project, which was to commence on 25 June.