Moscow, March 15, 2012. — RSC Group, Russia's and CIS countries leading full-cycle developer and integrator of next-generation supercomputing solutions based on Intel architecture and advanced liquid cooling, has demonstrated an update of RSC Tornado architecture. RSC Tornado is the world’s first energy efficient super-dense blade solution with liquid cooling which supports the new Intel® Xeon® E5 processor and Intel® server boards. The complete hardware and optimized software stack were showcased by RSC Group as a part of official launch of the new family of Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 processors for servers and data centers in Russia and CIS countries. Leveraging high efficiency of advanced liquid cooling and their own know-how RSC Group’s specialists implemented the best-performing model Intel® Xeon® E5-2690 of a new server processor in super-dense solutions for High Performance Computing (HPC) and data center markets reaching a record 74 TFLOPS/sq.m. compute density and high sustained efficiency at 92 percent according to LINPACK industry benchmark with Intel® Turbo Boost 2.0 technology always on.
"The launch of the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 processor family with outstanding characteristics has allowed RSC Group’s specialists to create the world’s first energy efficient super-dense and high-performance blade solution with liquid cooling in combination with Intel server boards positioned for the data center and powerful supercomputer market, which brings RSC Tornado architecture to a new level”, said Alexey Shmelev, COO at RCS Group.
At a technology demo-showcase during an Intel event in Moscow, RSC Group’s specialists have demonstrated a fully functional super-dense solution based on RSC Tornado architecture representing a rack with liquid cooled blade servers based on Intel® S2600JF server boards with two latest Intel Xeon E5-2690 processors per board (8 computing cores with the clock speed of 2.9 GHz and 20 MB of cache memory per chip, 135 W Thermal Design Power). In Turbo Boost mode, Intel Xeon E5-2690 processor used in the new RSC Tornado based solution stably operates at a higher clock speed of 3.3 GHz (400 MHz higher than the nominal clock speed) - thanks to highly efficient liquid cooling, which actually gives additional performance gain for clients and users of RSC’s HPC solutions.
RSC Tornado Architecture
The development of innovative RSC Tornado architecture for energy efficient data centers and supercomputers allowed RSC Group’s specialists to implement world's first advanced liquid cooling for widely available standard server boards (from various manufacturers) for Intel® Xeon® processors initially designed for traditional systems with air cooling of electronic components. This is the second generation of RSC's energy-efficient supercomputer and cloud computing solutions, as well as for data centers, which was already deployed in several projects such as in South Ural State University (SUSU, Chelyabinsk), Russia’s Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring (Roshydromet) and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT).
Among unique features of RSC Tornado and solutions based on the architecture there are the following:
• 128 servers in a standard 42U 80х80 cm rack;
• Record-breaking energy efficiency. The system has an industry-record Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of less than 1.06 (this is the ratio of total power consumption vs. power consumption of electronic components). This means that maximum 5.7% of the consumed energy will be used for cooling of the system;
• Record-breaking computing effectiveness ratio - more than 92 % for previous generation Intel® Xeon® 5680 and the new Intel Xeon E5-2690 processors according to LINPACK benchmark. Turbo Boost mode is engaged for entire run of LINPACK, which provides up to 400 MHz for clock speed gain;
• 65 kW of electric power per rack;
• Possibility to use Intel's best-performing server processors with heat dissipation of 135 W;
• Computing power of more than 47.5 TFLOPS peak per rack based on Intel x86 architecture with AVX Instruction Set;
• High density — 74 TFLOPS peak per square meter on Intel x86 architecture with AVX Instruction Set;
• High scalability, up to many PFLOPS and several dozens of racks;
• Economy efficiency – operating cost reduction by 60 percent (energy cost saving in rubles due to RSC’s solution operation);
• Compact size – data center square reduction in several times;
• Accelerator support.
The logical result is that RSC’s supercomputer based on RSC Tornado architecture (project in SUSU) is currently the most energy efficient Russian system in Green500 world rating.
Additionally, RSC Group’s specialists implemented a fully integrated НРС software stack.
About Intel Turbo Boost 2.0
This technology increases the clock speed when requested by an operating system for processing of peak workloads and for power consumption distribution between cores. For example, if all tasks are processed by a single core, then the processor can increase performance by redirecting power from an unused core to an active one. This technology ensures an even more speed in accelerated mode for Intel Xeon E5-2600 family. For example, previous generation Intel® Xeon® 5690 processor with one active core could increase the clock speed up to 266 MHz while the new Intel Xeon E5-2690 processor – up to 900 MHz.
