C A S E S T U D Y
CD-adapco
QLogic InfiniPath
®
Adapters
Yield Supercomputing Results
from Affordable Linux Clusters
Challenge
Optimize the performance of an affordable Linux
®
cluster for a computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
application initially designed for costly supercomputing
environments
Solution
30 QLogic
®
InfiniPath QLE7140 PCI Express adapters
interconnect through a SilverStorm (SilverStorm
Technologies
™
acquired November 2006 by QLogic
Corporation) 9080 multiprotocol fabric director switch to
30 IBM
®
System e326 compute nodes in an IBM System
Cluster 1350 running the Linux operating system. Each
node is powered by two dual-core 2.4 GHz AMD Opteron
processors, each with 2GB of memory per core
Result
Based on lab tests, the QLogic InfiniPath inter-node links
significantly cut the execution time of the CFD application
—approaching supercomputing performance levels
without a supercomputing price tag
High-performance computing is changing the world of high-end auto racing
thanks to CD-adapco, one of the world’s leading computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) software companies. A significant percentage of the cars in the FIA
Formula One Driver’s World Championship are designed with the aid of the
company’s STAR-CD modeling software—including the winners in 2005 and
2006. In addition to meeting the exacting demands of elite race car design,
STAR-CD has become the modeling software of choice for industries as diverse
as automotive, aerospace and defense, oil and gas production, chemicals,
marine design, and electric power generation.
According to Steven Feldman, director of product development and IT at CD-
adapco, the company is also gaining traction in other industries, thanks to
new economical ways to host its compute-intensive modeling applications.
“CFD software, which simulates everything from environmental conditions
to material compositions, has traditionally required expensive UNIX
®
-based
supercomputers. But we can now attain comparable performance on
inexpensive distributed memory clusters made up of Intel
®
architecture–based
servers running Linux,” he said.
In addition to CFD software, CD-adapco provides consulting services to
customers, helping them architect their clusters for the optimal cost and
performance. “Anything we can do to speed up the underlying infrastructure
makes our software more attractive and that, of course, can boost revenue for
our company.”
CD-adapco kicks the QLogic tires
As part of their evaluation of new hardware coming onto the market, Feldman
and his colleagues were looking for ways to increase the speed of inter-node
links. Servers had become so fast that the communications links were limiting
cluster performance. Estimates by the team showed that new InfiniPath
QLE7140 PCI Express cards from QLogic had the potential to significantly
increase the performance of a cluster. By achieving 10X-MR, InfiniPath
delivers over 10 times more messages per second than any other cluster
interconnect.
“QLogic InfiniPath adapters allow compute-intensive applications to achieve
high performance on affordable server clusters.”
— Steven Feldman, director of product development
and IT, CD-adapco
