The blue gene/L supercomputer: a hardware and software story

  • Authors:
  • José E. Moreira;Valentina Salapura;George Almasi;Charles Archer;Ralph Bellofatto;Peter Bergner;Randy Bickford;Mathias Blumrich;José R. Brunheroto;Arthur A. Bright;Michael Brutman;José G. Castaños;Dong Chen;Paul Coteus;Paul Crumley;Sam Ellis;Thomas Engelsiepen;Alan Gara;Mark Giampapa;Tom Gooding;Shawn Hall;Ruud A. Haring;Roger Haskin;Philip Heidelberger;Dirk Hoenicke;Todd Inglett;Gerrard V. Kopcsay;Derek Lieber;David Limpert;Pat McCarthy;Mark Megerian;Mike Mundy;Martin Ohmacht;Jeff Parker;Rick A. Rand;Don Reed;Ramendra Sahoo;Alda Sanomiya;Richard Shok;Brian Smith;Gordon G. Stewart;Todd Takken;Pavlos Vranas;Brian Wallenfelt;Michael Blocksome;Joe Ratterman

  • Affiliations:
  • IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY;IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Parallel Programming
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

The Blue Gene/L system at the Department of Energy Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California is the world's most powerful supercomputer. It has achieved groundbreaking performance in both standard benchmarks as well as real scientific applications. In that process, it has enabled new science that simply could not be done before. Blue Gene/L was developed by a relatively small team of dedicated scientists and engineers. This article is both a description of the Blue Gene/L supercomputer as well as an account of how that system was designed, developed, and delivered. It reports on the technical characteristics of the system that made it possible to build such a powerful supercomputer. It also reports on how teams across the world worked around the clock to accomplish this milestone of high-performance computing.