Linux cluster for geoscientific capacity simulations

• Subject Area: Geophysics and Geodesy
• Term: Funded in 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 495931446

The importance of computer simulations for understanding complex processes within the Earth has grown dramatically over the last few decades. This requires the permanent provision of simulation infrastructures with high compute capacity. For many years the chair of Geophysics at LMU has been focused on geoscientific modeling, which nowadays involves the interaction of high-performance computing and data explosion, i.e. the immense growth of data coming either from measurements or model calculations. The research is focused on the quantitative merging of models and observations. For this purpose, numerically extremely complex data assimilation methods are applied. Since many geophysical problems are inverse problems by nature, computationally demanding iterative optimization methods are used to determine complex model states from given sets of observations. Parallel high-performance computers make it possible today to solve discrete systems with more than 10exp10 degrees of freedom. Specifically this means that we can model the scale interaction of geophysical processes over three orders of magnitude. The resulting requirements for the computational infrastructures are particularly well met by Linux computing clusters. The system that is applied for here is essential as a simulation throughput system of high capacity. It is intended to cover the primary capacity computing needs and to perform systematic geophysical parameter studies, which may take many months of computation to complete. The system is thus a central component of the simulation infrastructure of the geophysics chair of LMU. To ensure the continuing long-term security of this infrastructure, the intended replacement of the current Linux cluster, acquired in 2012, is essential. We anticipate that there will be even more computing demand in the future within this rapidly growing mid range computing segment (mesoscale computing) of high throughput (capacity computing).

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Linux-Rechencluster für die geowissenschaftliche Kapazitätssimulation
• Instrumentation Group: 7030 Dedizierte, dezentrale Rechenanlagen, Prozeßrechner
• Applicant Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Leader: Professor Hans-Peter Bunge, Ph.D.