JUGENE

JUGENE (Jülich Blue Gene) was a supercomputer built by IBM for Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. It was based on the Blue Gene/P and succeeded the JUBL based on an earlier design. It was at the introduction the second fastest computer in the world, and the month before its decommissioning in July 2012 it was still at the 25th position in the TOP500 list. The computer was owned by the "Jülich Supercomputing Centre" (JSC) and the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing.

JUGENE

Sponsors	Forschungszentrum Jülich North Rhine-Westphalia Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Operators	Forschungszentrum Jülich
Architecture	65,536 PowerPC 450
Operating system	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

A schematic overview of a Blue Gene/P supercomputer

With 65,536 PowerPC 450 cores, clocked at 850 MHz and housed in 16 cabinets the computer reaches a peak processing power of 222.8 TFLOPS (R_peak). With an official Linpack rating of 167.3 TFLOPS (R_max) JUGENE took second place overall and is the fastest civil/commercially used computer in the TOP500 list of November 2007.^[1]

The computer was financed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Federal Ministry for Research and Education as well as the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. The head of the JSC, Thomas Lippert, said that "The unique thing about our JUGENE is its extremely low power consumption compared to other systems even at maximum computing power".^[1] A Blue Gene/P-System should reach about 0.35 GFLOPS/Watt and is therefore an order of magnitude more effective than a common x86 based supercomputer for a similar task.^[2]

In February 2009 it was announced that JUGENE would be upgraded to reach petaflops performance in June 2009, making it the first petascale supercomputer in Europe.^[3][4][5]

On May 26, 2009, the newly configured JUGENE was unveiled. It includes 294,912 processor cores, 144 terabyte memory, 6 petabyte storage in 72 racks. With a peak performance of about one PetaFLOPS, it was at the time the third fastest supercomputer in the world, ranking behind IBM Roadrunner and Jaguar.^[6] The new configuration also incorporates a new water cooling system that will reduce the cooling cost substantially.

The two front nodes of JUGENE are operated with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.

JUGENE was decommissioned on 31 July 2012 and replaced by the Blue Gene/Q system JUQUEEN.^[7]

References

1. "Supercomputing: Jülich Amongst World Leaders Again". Jülich Research Centre. 12 November 2007. Archived from the original on 19 November 2008. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
2. "IBM Enters Petascale Era with Blue Gene/P". HPCwire.com. 29 June 2007. Archived from the original on 4 January 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
3. "Interruptions of JSC Supercomputer Operations" (published 1 January 2009). 23 April 2009. Archived from the original on February 7, 2009. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
4. "Press Releases". Archived from the original on April 23, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2009.
5. "New IBM Petaflop Supercomputer at German Forschungszentrum Juelich to Be Europe's Most Powerful". IBM News. 10 February 2009. Archived from the original on February 12, 2009. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
6. Hartl, Judith (26 May 2009). "New super computer is faster than 50,000 PCs, says professor". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
7. "JUQUEEN - Jülich's New Green Flagship". Forschungszentrum Jülich. April 2012. Archived from the original on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 11 October 2015.