Exascale Project DEEP Started

The EU-funded project DEEP started on 1 December 2011 with the goal of developing a Dynamical Exascale Entry Platform over the next three years.

In the DEEP project, partners from all over Europe (8 research centres, 3 universities, and 5 industrial companies) have joined forces to build the prototype of a novel supercomputing architecture for exascale: the DEEP system. Its innovative design consists of two parts, which are connected to each other but can also be operated autonomously: Cluster and Booster. DEEP aims to bridge the gap between today’s highly scalable architectures and less scalable cluster machines. In the DEEP system, applications will run those parts of their code with regular communication patterns (typically highly scalable) on the Booster, leaving their less scalable complex kernels on the Cluster. While the Cluster is an off-the-shelf component, the Booster will be designed and built by the DEEP project partners using Intel MIC processors and the novel EXTOLL interconnect. To increase energy efficiency, the DEEP system will be cooled using the "hot water" concept, which significantly reduces the energy needed for cooling. However, DEEP is not only a hardware project. To run the DEEP system, a programming and run-time environment will be created, and mathematical libraries and performance analysis tools will be adapted. Furthermore, six scientific applications, selected based on their high relevance for industry and society, will be ported to the DEEP system to demonstrate the validity of the DEEP concept and its scalability towards exascale.

JSC is coordinating the DEEP project and is participating in the architectural (both hardware and software) design, the development of the lower layers of the programming environment, and the adaptation of mathematical libraries and the performance analysis tool Scalasca to the new platform. The DEEP system will be installed at JSC.

(Contact: Wolfgang Gürich, Dr. Estela Suarez)

from JSC News No. 200, 9 December 2011