Viglen scents HPC success with £4m JASMIN deal

System builder says £4m deal with super-data-cluster will have major impact on UK science community

Viglen has delivered a £4m high-performance computing (HPC) contract for an environmental research facility it claims will have a "significant scientific impact" on the UK.

Following a competitive tender process, the UK system builder landed a deal to design and install an integrated HPC, storage and networking solution to upgrade JASMIN, a super-data-cluster serving the environmental science community.

Founded in 2012 and run by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC), JASMIN turned to Viglen for extra power and storage after reaching optimum capacity in its first year.

Its new 4000 core compute capability features 200 Viglen-built servers.

The project saw the system builder, which recently sold up to Westcoast Group, configure a multi-vendor solution using a 10GB Mellanox network and an additional 7 Petabytes of Panasas disk "in a very tight timeframe".

The additional power and storage will allow JASMIN2 to support a wider range of projects, including those involving environmental genomics, hydrology and earthquake science, Viglen said.

Viglen chief executive Bordan Tkachuk labelled it a "very important, high-profile project" for the system builder.

"This has a significant scientific and economic impact on the UK - as well as including a big international element as well," he said. "I am delighted that the design and roll out went so well - it was a huge task to integrate everything in such a tight timeframe."