TerraWulf II - Overview
TerraWulf is a networked ‘Beowulf’ cluster of computers
set up at RSES to provide convenient high end computing power for a range
of demanding geoscience problems, particularly in the fields of thermochronology,
seismology, geodesy crustal and mantle dynamics, and landform evolution. The main cluster, TerrraWulf II, consists of 96 nodes
(384 processor cores) connected through Gigabit and Infiniband switches
which significantly extend the range of potential applications of the
cluster to both `tight’ and
`loosely coupled’ codes. The cluster was delivered in late
2007 and officially launched in June 2008. The TerraWulf II cluster is now used for a variety of
geoscience data processing and development of processing techniques,
simulation and analysis of terrestrial processes as well as continuing
development of inversion and data inference software. It is accessible
directly through a local account and via the AuScope grid. Members of
the AuScope Community can request a project account through the Access
page
Background:
In 2003 we developed a Beowulf cluster as a platform for solving complex data inference problems in the Earth Sciences, and in particular the fields of thermochronology, seismology, crustal and mantle dynamics, and landform evolution. A Beowulf cluster is a network-linked set of commodity `off-the-shelf' computers configured to give high performance/cost ratio. Projects using the TerraWulf facility combined state-of-the-art computational techniques developed at ANU with high quality data sets collected over the previous decade to address fundamental questions in the Geosciences.
A major upgrade of the TerraWulf compute cluster was recently made possible by funding support from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) under the AuScope umbrella. Contributions from the AuScope Geospatial, Imaging and Structure, and Access and Interoperability components combined with support from RSES has enabled the construction of a new and more powerful cluster.