HPC Visualization
Maine High Performance Computing and Visualization Platform (MCVP). The department, in collaboration with the CS department at University of Southern Maine, was recently awarded a $20,000 grant from the University System Chancellor's office. This grant will be used to purchase a cluster of four Tesla S1070 high-performance Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) with a total of 960 processor cores, and a 4X4 high-resolution display wall for each department.
GPUs are being increasingly used as a low-cost supercomputer, and the cluster purchased from this grant will be an important addition to the state s high-performance computing infrastructure. The cutting-edge technologies purchased through this grant will enable new and exciting joint research in the area of remote real-time visualization of scientific data, will provide opportunities to explore the creation of a statewide computational Grid, and will provide a testbed for the K-12 educational outreach activities of the University of Maine Scientific Grid Portal project (directed by Dr. Dickens). Students from both campuses will develop valuable skills in high-performance computing through the use of these (and other) emerging technologies in a new course, Supercomputing Technologies, which will be offered jointly between the two departments via distance education in the spring of 2010.
Each NVIDIA Tesla GPU has 240 cores per processor for a total of 960
cores. They can be utilized for both a high-performance computing and
high-resolution graphics.