HK Observatory deploys Dell high performance computing cluster
The Hong Kong Observatory (HKO) said recently that a Dell-powered high-performance computing cluster (HPCC) has gone live at its headquarters data center facility after a nine month implementation period.
The new HPCC system will replace an older system and enhance the observatory’s weather forecasting systems for temperature, humidity, wind, rainfall and sea level pressure, said HKO, adding that forecast products are already available on the enhanced Computer Forecast Weather Map in the HKO website, updating of which increased from twice per day to four times per day.
According to HKO in a statement, resolutions of weather models have been enhanced from 20-kilometre to 2-kilometre, providing more detailed weather information for specific locations in Hong Kong. The Observatory’s Wind Forecast for Water Sport Activities webpage has also been enhanced through these models. Forecast period is lengthened from one-day to three-day, allowing sports enthusiasts to plan further ahead for their wind-sensitive water activities.
The HPCC is powered by Dell PowerEdge Servers equipped with Intel Nehalem processors, providing a total of 7.7 Teraflops of computational power with no single point of failure, said Dell. Other components in the HPCC include the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating platform, Platform LSF Workload Management, Intel Cluster toolkits and EMC CX4-240 FC storage area networks, the IT vendor added.
According to Dell, the HKO's deployment is the vendor's third large-scale HPCC in Hong Kong within two years.
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