BILLERICA, MASS. & HERZELIYA, ISRAEL – Voltaire Ltd., a provider of grid backbone solutions for data centers,
announced that Audi has implemented Voltaire’s Grid Director switches as part
of an HP supercomputer to advance Audi’s auto safety standards. This is the
auto industry’s fastest supercomputer and is ranked No. 81 on the TOP500 list
of the world’s fastest supercomputers, according to www.businesswire.com.
The
high-performance computing system helps save days of computing time along with
unnecessary costs for vehicle safety simulations. The use of Voltaire
InfiniBand switches and software for the supercomputer’s cluster interconnect
greatly improves the simulation software’s performance, allowing for deeper and
faster analysis and decreasing the design time needed for new car models.
Audi’s
29.184-teraflop (peak performance) system is based on HP Cluster Platform
3000BL, a system built using 608 nodes supporting HP ProLiant BL460c server
blades connected by Voltaire Grid Director 9024 20 Gigabits/second (Gbps)
double data rate (DDR) InfiniBand switches. The system uses ESI’s PAM-CRASH 2G
simulation software to perform crash simulations for various Audi car models.
Voltaire
Grid Director switches use 20 Gbps InfiniBand technology, which provides high
bandwidth and very low latency to enhance the infrastructure and application
performance. The switches provide the throughput and scalability needed to
capture the full power of the servers to calculate the tremendous volumes of
data generated during the simulation process. The HP supercomputer enables Audi
to run more model simulations overnight, thus ensuring an effective design
process that enhances the analysis of the safety elements of its vehicles.
“Audi has
slashed days off the computing time required for vehicle safety simulations
through its HP high-performance computing system running on Voltaire
switches, lowering overall costs,” said Ed Turkel, manager, product and
solution marketing, Scalable Computing & Infrastructure, HP. “HP’s
optimized clustered solutions for computer-aided engineering applications
enable customers to run more complex simulations faster, speeding time to
result, and delivering tangible return on investment quickly.”
