High Performance Compute Cluster

• Term: Funded in 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 440719683

The Erlangen Regional Computing Center (RRZE) of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) applies for the procurement of a high performance compute cluster, which will be used primarily for parallel simulations in chemistry, pharmacy, and biology (life sciences) as well as for applied fluid mechanics. The parallel computer to be procured must therefore offer a balance between single core/single socket compute power, memory bandwidth, communication performance and background storage access, and must be equipped with a robust software environment for parallel program development.The proposed system will be used in a focused manner in particular according to the enclosed Supplements on Research: by the GRK 2423 Fracture across Scales (FRASCAL), the professorships of Computational Biology, and Computational Chemistry, the chairs of Theoretical Chemistry, and Pharmaceutical Chemistry as well as the chairs of Fluid Systems & Flow Acoustics, and Computational Medicine.In view of the national and international competitiveness of these research groups, the procurement is indispensable. GPGPUs have become the accepted state of the art for many molecular dynamics simulations. Accordingly, a certain number of GPGPU nodes are planned, which can also become important for future requirements in the field of machine learning. However, a complete equipment with accelerator hardware is still deliberately avoided, as standard computing nodes allow a more flexible and long-term use. 

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Hochleistungscompute-Cluster
• Instrumentation Group: 7040 Vektorrechner
• Applicant Institution: Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
• Leader: Dr. Gerhard Hergenröder