Itanium is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture. The Itanium architecture originated at Hewlett-Packard (HP), and was later jointly developed by HP and Intel. Launched in June 2001, Intel initially marketed the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems. In the concept phase, engineers said "we could run circles around PowerPC, that we could kill the x86." Early predictions were that IA-64 would expand to the lower-end servers, supplanting Xeon, and eventually penetrate into the personal computers, eventually to supplant RISC and complex instruction set computing (CISC) architectures for all general-purpose applications.
InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used as either a direct or switched interconnect between servers and storage systems, as well as an interconnect between storage systems. It is designed to be scalable and uses a switched fabric network topology. By 2014, it was the most commonly used interconnect in the TOP500 list of supercomputers, until about 2016.
System x is a line of x86 servers produced by IBM, and later by Lenovo, as a sub-brand of IBM's System brand, alongside IBM Power Systems, IBM System z and IBM System Storage. In addition, IBM System x was the main component of the IBM System Cluster 1350 solution.
x86-64 is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mode.
Xeon is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same architecture as regular desktop-grade CPUs, but have advanced features such as support for ECC memory, higher core counts, more PCI Express lanes, support for larger amounts of RAM, larger cache memory and extra provision for enterprise-grade reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features responsible for handling hardware exceptions through the Machine Check Architecture. They are often capable of safely continuing execution where a normal processor cannot due to these extra RAS features, depending on the type and severity of the machine-check exception (MCE). Some also support multi-socket systems with two, four, or eight sockets through use of the Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI) bus.
A blade server is a stripped-down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power consumption and other considerations, while still having all the functional components to be considered a computer. Unlike a rack-mount server, a blade server fits inside a blade enclosure, which can hold multiple blade servers, providing services such as power, cooling, networking, various interconnects and management. Together, blades and the blade enclosure form a blade system, which may itself be rack-mounted. Different blade providers have differing principles regarding what to include in the blade itself, and in the blade system as a whole.
Altix is a line of server computers and supercomputers produced by Silicon Graphics, based on Intel processors. It succeeded the MIPS/IRIX-based Origin 3000 servers.
MareNostrum is the main supercomputer in the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. It is the most powerful supercomputer in Spain, one of thirteen supercomputers in the Spanish Supercomputing Network and one of the seven supercomputers of the European infrastructure PRACE.
PowerLinux is the combination of a Linux-based operating system (OS) running on PowerPC- or Power ISA-based computers from IBM. It is often used in reference along with Linux on Power, and is also the name of several Linux-only IBM Power Systems.
The IBM BladeCenter was IBM's blade server architecture, until it was replaced by Flex System in 2012. The x86 division was later sold to Lenovo in 2014.
Oracle Linux is a Linux distribution packaged and freely distributed by Oracle, available partially under the GNU General Public License since late 2006. It is compiled from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) source code, replacing Red Hat branding with Oracle's. It is also used by Oracle Cloud and Oracle Engineered Systems such as Oracle Exadata and others.
The Cray CX1 is a deskside workstation designed by Cray Inc., based on the x86-64 processor architecture. It was launched on September 16, 2008, and was discontinued in early 2012. It comprises a single chassis blade server design that supports a maximum of eight modular single-width blades, giving up to 96 processor cores. Computational load can be run independently on each blade and/or combined using clustering techniques.
Exalogic is a computer appliance made by Oracle Corporation, commercially available since 2010. It is a cluster of x86-64-servers running Oracle Linux or Solaris preinstalled.
The Dell blade server products are built around their M1000e enclosure that can hold their server blades, an embedded EqualLogic iSCSI storage area network and I/O modules including Ethernet, Fibre Channel and InfiniBand switches.
Yellowstone was the inaugural supercomputer at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC) in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was installed, tested, and readied for production in the summer of 2012. The Yellowstone supercomputing cluster was decommissioned on December 31, 2017, being replaced by its successor Cheyenne.
The ThinkServer product line began with the TS100 from Lenovo. The server was developed under agreement with IBM, by which Lenovo would produce single-socket and dual-socket servers based on IBM's xSeries technology. An additional feature of the server design was a support package aimed at small businesses. The focus of this support package was to provide small businesses with software tools to ease the process of server management and reduce dependence on IT support. The tools developed for this support package included:
PureSystems is an IBM product line of factory pre-configured components and servers also being referred to as an "Expert Integrated System". The centrepiece of PureSystems is the IBM Flex System Manager in tandem with the so-called "Patterns of Expertise" for the automated configuration and management of PureSystems.
QPACE 2 is a massively parallel and scalable supercomputer. It was designed for applications in lattice quantum chromodynamics but is also suitable for a wider range of applications..
Nvidia DGX is a line of Nvidia-produced servers and workstations which specialize in using GPGPU to accelerate deep learning applications. The typical design of a DGX system is based upon a rackmount chassis with motherboard that carries high performance x86 server CPUs. The main component of a DGX system is a set of 4 to 16 Nvidia Tesla GPU modules on an independent system board. DGX systems have large heatsinks and powerful fans to adequately cool thousands of watts of thermal output. The GPU modules are typically integrated into the system using a version of the SXM socket.
Taiwania 3 is one of the supercomputers made by Taiwan, and also the newest one. It is placed in the National Center for High-performance Computing of NARLabs. There are 50,400 cores in total with 900 nodes, using Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 2.4 GHz CPU and using CentOS as Operating System. It is an open access for public supercomputer. It is currently open access to scientists and more to do specific research after get permission from Taiwan's National Center for High-performance Computing. This is the third supercomputer of the Taiwania series. It uses CentOS x86_64 7.8 as its system operator and Slurm Workload Manager as workflow manager to ensure better performance. Taiwania 3 uses InfiniBand HDR100 100Gbit/s high speed Internet connection to ensure better performance of the supercomputer. The main memory capability is 192GB. There's currently two Intel Xeon Platinum 8280 2.4 GHz CPU inside each node. The full calculation capability is 2.7PFLOPS. It is launched into operation in November 2020 before schedule due to the needed for COVID-19. It is currently ranked number 227 on Top 500 list of June, 2021 and number 80 on Green 500 list. It is manufactured by Quanta Computer, Taiwan Fixed Network, and ASUS Cloud.
