Fujitsu links Linux cluster using Infiniband

Fujitsu says it has succeeded in using InfiniBand to connect together a cluster of Linux-based servers running an application - an industry first, according to the company.

The cluster consisted of 16 of the company's Primergy dual-processor servers, for a total of 32 processors, and was linked using InfiniBand, a relatively new system being promoted for the interconnection of servers to make building such clusters easier.

The cluster was controlled by SCore, a software application developed as part of the Japanese government's Real World Computing Project (RWCP), said Fujitsu, and was running prerelease versions of Intel's InfiniBand systems. These components together produced a maximum data transfer rate of 2.5G bit/sec.

A port of Amber, a molecular dynamics calculation package developed at the University of California, San Francisco, was running on the system. Amber was developed to support SCore and includes components developed as part of the RWCP, Fujitsu said.

Following the announcement Monday, the system will get its public debut later this week when a high performance computing seminar gets underway in Kobe, West Japan.

Earlier this year NEC announced the opening of an engineering center for Linux-based PC cluster systems in Tokyo. The center uses NEC's own Linux servers and SCore to control the cluster, but the interconnection between the machines uses Ethernet or Myrinet, two alternative networking technologies that have slower maximum data transfer rates.

Fujitsu, in Tokyo, is at http://www.fujitsu.co.jp/

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.