DOD aims for supercomputer upgrades every two to three years

Computerworld - The U.S. Department of Defense probably upgrades its supercomputers more frequently than most people upgrade their laptops: every two to three years. And the DOD's latest research computer, one of many, is a $12.65 million, water-cooled IBM system with 4,700 Power processors that boasts approximately four times the computing capability of the older IBM system it replaces.

The older system, acquired in 2006, isn't going away, but the Pentagon's most demanding jobs will move to the new system.

The new supercomputer, which will go live in October, operates at about 80 teraflops, or 80 trillion calculations per second. It would rank in the top 20 of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

Continually upgrading DOD hardware in order to keep up with the relentless demand for more computational capability is "what we are chartered to do," said Dave Cole, assistant director of the Naval Oceanographic Office Major Shared Resource Center (MSRC) at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

This particular system will be used in part for search-and-rescue operations at sea. It "will provide the computational capability needed by higher-resolution ocean and atmospheric models for improved accuracy of forecasts," said Cole. That capability "is essential to more effectively support Navy flight and sea safety, search-and-rescue operations, optimal aircraft and ship routing, and mission planning," he explained.

The older supercomputer will remain in use, with IT staff migrating applications over to the new system after determining what applications would benefit most from the increased capacity.

Read more about mainframes and supercomputers in Computerworld's Mainframes and Supercomputers Knowledge Center.