Project information
Supercomputing Project

The project started in 1994 as a pilot project of the Universities Development
Fund (UDF) of the Czech Ministry of Education entitled "Introducing Supercomputing Technologies
at Universities of the Czech Republic". The primary aim was to make
high-performance computing technologies available for a wide community of
academic users from Czech universities. The Pilot Project
Executive Board, headed by Ludik Matyska, was established responsible
for the project.

The first supercomputing centres were built in the end of 1994 in Prague (at Charles University
Institute of Computer Science) and in Brno (at Masaryk University Institute of Computer Science
and Technical University Centre for Computing and Information Systems).

These centres were equipped with Silicon Graphics computers POWER Challenge:

• CU-ICS : 6 processors MIPS R8000/75MHz and 1 GB RAM;
  
• MU-ICS : 4 processors MIPS R8000/75MHz and 1 GB RAM;
  
• CVIS VUT: 2 processors MIPS R8000/75MHz and 0,5 GB RAM.
  

and with more than 10 workstations (Indy and one Indigo2) for end-user workplaces.

The software was purchased and installed ranging from basic development tools
to application programs, among others:

• Program SGI Varsity (operating system, development tools,
  www tools) for Silicon Graphics.
  
• SPARTAN, a program system for computational chemistry.
  
• BIOSYM, a modular system for computational chemistry
  (modules for life sciences).
  
• ANSYS.
  
• Fluent, computational fluid dynamics.
  
• MAPLE, UK university licence.
  

In 1995 the pilot project continued and more computers were purchased and installed, namely

• IBM SP2, computational system with distributed memory, installed at Czech Technical
  University Computing Centre in Prague.
  The original set consisted of 9 processors IBM POWER2.
  
• Digital AlphaServer 8400/5 with 8 processors Alpha EV5 and 2 GB RAM, installed at
  University of West Bohemia in Plzeo.
  

Other, less powerful, computer systems were installed in Ostrava
(IBM SP2) and Olomouc (Digital 2100A), two more processors
R8000/75Mhz were added to the system installed at MU-ICS in Brno, and another
two to the IBM SP2 system in Prague.

The most important software installations in 1995 were:

• Permanent licence of the MATLAB system. 150 floating licences of MATLAB, SIMULINK and three toolboxes were bought, 50 floating licences for other six toolboxes and in total three licence servers were installed at WBU,
  CTU-CC and MU-ICS.
  
• System LSF (Load Sharing Facility), installed on all computers at all supercomputing centres.
  
• Enhancement of the BIOSYM system by solid-state modules. These modules are installed in Prague.
  
• Increased number of the Fluent system installations and the corresponding Geomesh pre-processors.
  
• The Pro/Engineer system licence for the six most important universities.
  

In 1996 the UDF accepted the project "University Supercomputing Centres" the aim of which
was to further extend the centres in Prague and Brno (both hardware parameters and the software).

The POWER Challenge computers were extended by exchanging their R8000 processors for a newer type
MIPS R10000/195Mhz while increasing their number (by 12 at both CU-ICS and MU-ICS and 8 at CTU-CVIS).
At the same time the original memory capacity of all three computers was doubled. The configuration
of the IBM SP2 computer at CTU-CC was changed to the total of 19 processors.