Shaheen (supercomputer)

Shaheen (supercomputer)
Shaheen is the name of a series of supercomputers owned and operated by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. Shaheen is named after the Peregrine Falcon. The most recent model, Shaheen II, is the largest and most powerful supercomputer in the Middle East.
Shaheen I
The first generation of Shaheen (2009-2015) was an IBM Blue Gene/P. It was originally built at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and moved to KAUST in mid-2009. The computer was created by Majid Alghaslan while he was working for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.
The first generation of Shaheen included the following functional elements:
16 racks of Blue Gene/P, having a peak performance of 222 Teraflops
164 IBM IBM System x 3550 Xeon nodes, having a peak performance of 12 Teraflops
Performance
Shaheen I's performance and computing capabilities included:
65,536 independent processing cores.
10 Gbit/s access to world's academic and research networks.
The file system and Spectra Logic TFinity tape system were mounted across both the Blue Gene system and the Linux cluster. All elements of the system were connected together on a common network backbone that is accessible from all campus buildings. The systems were also be accessible from the Internet.
Shaheen II
The second generation of Shaheen was brought into service in 2015. It consists of a 36-cabinet XC40 supercomputer.
the computer is ranked the 97th fastest supercomputer in the world, with a Rmax of 5.54 petaFLOPS.
Services
The Shaheen system at KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory (KSL) is available to help KAUST users and projects, to provide training and advice, to develop and deploy applications, to provide consultation on best practices and to provide collaboration support as needed.
KAUST Faculty will have access to:
General support for Shaheen facility use, including usage scheduling of Shaheen and peripheral systems
High-performance computing support for "Grand Challenges" by collaboration with the Center to deliver fundamental breakthroughs in specific areas of research
Collaboration to provide high-performance computing applications, middleware, library, algorithm support and enablement services
Applications Enablement where users can task the CDCR to develop, enable, port and scale key applications
High-performance Computing Program Best Practice Management techniques
Participation with KAUST researchers in external projects
Training on high-performance computing systems management, programming, applications tuning and algorithms
Research topics
KAUST, using the Shaheen systems, will focus on four specific research thrusts:
Resources, energy, and environment
Biosciences and bioengineering
Materials science and engineering
Applied mathematics and computational science
Data sets for this research will be unique in that they will come from the Saudi Arabia region, focusing on areas such as oil and gas reserves, Red Sea data, and other areas distinctive to KAUST.
Restrictions
Although KAUST does not support any kind of discrimination against any students or faculty based on religion, sex, or national origin, IBM and Cray have to comply with US Export regulations governing exporting high-end computing technology. As per the regulations a restriction had to be made to deny nationals of Syria, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and North Korea from access to the supercomputer.
Institutional partners
The Shaheen system at KAUST is made possible through a joint collaboration between the Cray and KAUST. In addition to IBM and Cray, KSL has partnered with the following partner research institutions and organizations:
The Oxford Center for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM) at Oxford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Imperial College London
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Institut Français du Pétrole
National University of Singapore
American University in Cairo
Technische Universität München
GE Global Research
King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
Saudi Aramco
Wipro Arabia
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
See also
Blue Gene
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Cray XC40
References
External links
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Web site
Video of SHAHEEN I and KAUST Supercomputing Lab on Vimeo
IBM supercomputers
Parallel computing
Cray products
Science and technology in Saudi Arabia
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology