TerraWulf I - the early days

 

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. The original cluster was 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.

Two major upgrades of the TerraWulf compute cluster have been made possible by funding support from the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) under the AuScope and AuScope/AGOS umbrellas combined with support from RSES providing a new and more powerful cluster.

TerraWulf I - Technical Specifications

The first Terrawulf, built in 2003, was a classic Beowulf cluster consisting of a network-linked set of commodity 'off-the-shelf' computers configured to give high performance/cost ratio. It was intended 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.

The original Terrawulf consisted of 128 tower PCs supplied by Cougar Computers Canberra P/L.

Each compute node contained:

  • A 2.4 GHz Pentium IV processor
  • ASUS P4T533-CAL motherboard
  • 1 GB 1066 MHz ECC RDRAM
  • 40 Gbyte ATA HDD
  • Netgear GA302T Gigabit Ethernet card

The head node contained:

  • Dual 2.0GHz Intel Xeon processor
  • ASUS PR-DLS server motherboard
  • 2 GB ECC DDR RAM
  • 7x WD600JB 60 GB SCSI HDD in RAID-5
  • 3Ware Esclade 7500 8 port RAID controller
  • 2x Intel Pro/1000XT Ethernet cards
  • AOpen CRW4850 CD writer

Nodes were connected through 6x 24port Netgear GS524T Gigabit Ethernet swithces. The operating system was Red Hat Linux using the NPACI Rocks Cluster Distribution and Ganglia cluster monitoring. Core software included MPICH-MPI and the Intel Fortran compiler

Air conditioning was supplied by a 42kW APAC unit mounted on the roof above the machine room.

The original Terrawulf: 128 desktop PCs.