CSC selected HP to boost supercomputing power

20.06.2012

HP ProLiant Gen8 servers enable CSC to deliver high performance computing resources for research

CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd. has selected a high performance computing cluster based on HP ProLiant Gen8 servers from HP to power its new Kajaani Data Center, one of the most eco-efficient in the world. In a five-year deal worth 4.5 million Euros, HP will enable CSC to provide cost-effective supercomputing capacity for the needs of science and research across Finland and Europe. CSC is funded and acts in behalf of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland.

"CSC needs to provide supercomputing capacity on-demand to support research and development in the public and private sectors," says Tero Tuononen, Director, ICT Platforms at CSC. "Building on our longstanding relationship, HP will provide a cost-effective high-performance computing platform for our ecologically efficient new data center in Kajaani. Based on HP servers and supported by HP services, the flexible, reliable infrastructure will be easily expandable to accommodate future growth in demand."

CSC’s requirement of a general purpose HPC system to solve challenging scientific tasks is met by HP using standard, power and space optimized HP Proliant SL230s Gen8 servers that leverage cutting edge Intel microprocessor technology, all in all 1,152 processors and 9,216 cores.  The compute nodes will be connected with a fast interconnect, Mellanox InfiniBand 56 gigabits/second FDR fabric. In the first phase, the peak capacity of the system will be approximately 190 TFlop/s with total amount of memory of 40 TB.

CSC’s Kajaani Data Center aims for a near-zero carbon footprint during its operational lifetime. Servers are cooled with outside air, and the primary means of electric power is hydropower-generated energy. The data center’s annual energy efficiency is estimated to be 1.15 Power Usage Efficiency (PUE). PUE is the ratio between the energy consumed by the data center servers and the total energy consumed.

"Like most HPC customers, CSC requires a powerful HPC system to enable their operations, within a minimal carbon footprint," says Mika Sarhimaa, MD, HP Finland. "We’ve got a good team with high technical competency to meet CSC’s needs and are ready to deliver CSC the 576 servers that are required in the first phase."

Media contacts:

Hannu Mourujärvi
CSC
Puh. +358 50 381 8524
hannu.mourujarvi@csc.fi

Taina Kaitala
HP
Puh. +358 50 372 3406
taina.kaitala@hp.com

About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

About CSC — IT Center for Science Ltd.
CSC is a non-profit organisation administered by the Finnish Ministry of Education, Science and Culture to provide IT resources for academia, research institutes and businesses. The company offers Finland's most powerful supercomputing environment as well as the widest selection of scientific software and databases. Scientists and researchers around the world can access CSC’s services via Funet (Finnish University and Research Network).