Supercomputer capabilities to become part of mainstream IT for enterprise customers

BANGALORE, INDIA: SUSE announced that the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system is being used by more than one-third of the top 100 supercomputers in the world, as ranked by the TOP500 list, a project that tracks and detects trends in high-performance computing (HPC).

SUSE leads in supercomputing through a unique combination of high scalability, flexible architecture and ability to handle large volumes of computer processing units (CPUs). It also validates the overall strength in HPC environments of Linux, which powers more than 95 percent of the TOP500 list.

"SUSE has invested heavily in developing solutions that enable the fastest computers in the world," said Meike Chabowski, product marketing manager for Enterprise Linux Servers at SUSE. "The next step in supercomputing is to move from high performance to high productivity, and our partners like SGI, Cray and Teradata are helping to lead these advancements. Linux will continue to be an integral part of these revolutionary machines."

The past few years have seen significant changes in the high-performance computing landscape - often referred to recently as high-productivity computing. This is due at least in part to the emergence of open source and new clustering technologies. The evolution of both lower-cost hardware and Linux has dramatically reduced the cost of these systems. Compute power has increased a thousand times in just a few years, allowing enterprises to use the power of supercomputers in the form of HPC Linux clusters on commodity hardware.

Virtually every industry is adopting Linux clusters to achieve performance improvements needed to deliver on organizational goals. Seismic analysis for oil exploration, aerodynamic simulation for motor and aircraft design, Hollywood special effects, molecular modeling for biomedical research, super-scalable business computing, and data mining and financial modeling for business analysis all leverage HPC.

In a silent evolution since 2011, the TOP500 list now includes 270 industrial supercomputers outside academic, research and government use, spanning all industries (with a peak in the Energy/Oil&Gas and IT Service Providers sectors). The fastest industrial supercomputer and number 11 on the TOP500 list is Pangea at Total Exploration Production in France, an SGI ICE X system running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.