An IBM Case Study. The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd. (NIWA) required a more powerful supercomputer that would enable development of higher-resolution models of climate, weather, sea-state, sea level,river flows and more, to support betterhazard forecasting and other research.The institute deployed 56 IBM Power 575 supercomputer nodes with a total of 1,792 IBMPOWER6 cores and 34 teraFlops peak performance resulting in increasing performance, accuracy and timing saving. Visit http://bit.ly/KWh5Dx to 'Follow' the official Twitter handle of IBM India Smarter Computing.

1. IBM Systems and Technology Government
Case Study
NIWA speeds
environmental modeling
and hazard forecasting
With supercomputer based on IBM Power
Architecture
The National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research Ltd.
Overview (NIWA) is a New Zealand Crown Research Institute, with a global
reputation for its expertise in water and atmospheric research. Its mis-
The need
sion is to conduct leading environmental science to enable the sustain-
NIWA required a more powerful super-
able management of natural resources for New Zealand and the rest of
computer that would enable develop-
ment of higher-resolution models of the planet. NIWA is a separate organization from the Meteorological
climate, weather, sea-state, sea level, Service of New Zealand Limited (MetService), which provides the
river flows and more, to support better country’s daily national forecasts.
hazard forecasting and other research.
The solution NIWA wanted to help create a new national capability for research on
NIWA deployed 56 IBM® Power® 575 grand-challenge scientific problems—these are fundamental problems
supercomputer nodes with a total of in science and engineering that potentially have broad social, political,
1,792 IBM POWER6® cores and
34 teraFlops peak performance. The economic and scientific impact. Equally, the organization wanted to
solution uses InfiniBand networking and improve its own modeling capabilities in order to create more accurate
is partially water-cooled. and more specific hazard forecasts.
The benefit
Greater performance: a weather model
Dr. Michael Uddstrom, Principal Scientist: Environmental
that took 80 minutes to complete on Forecasting, Meteorology & Remote Sensing, and HPCF Manager at
40 percent of the previous system now NIWA, says: “We are always striving to create better forecast models
runs in eight minutes on eight percent
that more closely reflect New Zealand’s complex geography, use more
of the new system, and is twice as
detailed. data, and deliver faster and more reliable forecasts of hazards such as
river flooding and coastal inundation. In addition, we wanted to sup-
port research into other grand-challenge problems, to enable New
Zealand scientists to carry out internationally significant work. Our
existing supercomputer from Cray was effectively five years past its
‘use-by’ date.”
Intensive selection
NIWA required a supercomputer offering both extreme compute
power and very high-speed networking. The organization compiled a
request for proposals (RFP) spanning 288 specific requirements and
specifying eight science- and two industry-benchmark codes.

2. IBM Systems and Technology Government
Case Study
“We were setting out to create a major strategic asset for NIWA
and for New Zealand, and making a major investment, so it was
“We were very impressed vital to find the best possible solution for our requirements,” says
with the quality of the Michael Uddstrom.
IBM people and After an exhaustive analysis of the vendor responses, the decision-
processes—they did makers at NIWA unanimously chose IBM to supply the new super-
an excellent job.” computer, named FitzRoy in honor of the pioneering meteorologist.
“We had never worked with IBM before, but it soon became clear
that their proposed solution was the superior option and would be
—Michael Uddstrom, Principal Scientist:
Environmental Forecasting, Meteorology & backed by genuine expertise in high-performance computing,” says
Remote Sensing, and HPCF Manager, Michael Uddstrom.
National Institute of Water & Atmospheric
Research Ltd. (NIWA)
Powering up
The FitzRoy supercomputer at NIWA consists of 56 IBM Power® 575
servers, each with 32 IBM POWER6 processing cores running AIX®
5.3L, for a total of 1,792 cores. Each of the cores runs at 4.7 GHz, and
the system has 5.38 TB of memory; a planned upgrade will see FitzRoy
grow to 3,456 processor cores and 8.7 TB of memory. Management
tools for the supercomputer include IBM Tivoli® Workload Scheduler
LoadLeveler®, which enables NIWA to optimize the utilization of
compute resources at all times.
FitzRoy uses ultra-fast InfiniBand networking to connect to a data
storage cluster powered by IBM General Parallel File System
(GPFS™) running on IBM Power Systems™ servers. The data itself is
stored on two high-performance IBM System Storage® DCS9900
arrays, currently with 600 TB capacity and due to be upgraded to
2 PB. IBM Tivoli Storage Manager software enables hierarchical stor-
age management, whereby data that is not required for high-speed
access can be moved to lower-cost media. Such data is first moved
from the SAS tier to the slower SATA tier in the DCS9900, then ulti-
mately to an IBM System Storage TS3500 Tape Library. A second
IBM TS3500 backs up all data for disaster recovery purposes.
“Before implementing the supercomputer, we first needed to build the
infrastructure to house it, including a water cooling system,” says
Michael Uddstrom. “During that time, IBM hosted the solution in one
of its data centers, later handling the move to our new site. That meant
two separate sets of complex acceptance and verification tests; we were
very impressed with the quality of the IBM people and processes—they
did an excellent job.”
2

3. IBM Systems and Technology Government
Case Study
FitzRoy is powered and cooled by a new plant facility that incorporates
Solution components: a 1 MW transformer, two 370 kW air-cooled water chillers, and a
cooling circuit that can hold 5,500 liters of chilled water. Water
Hardware
cooling accounts for 70 percent of requirements, enabling NIWA to
● IBM® Power® 575
minimize its air-conditioning capacity and consequently to keep its
● IBM Power 520
● IBM System Storage® DCS9900 electricity usage down.
● IBM System Storage TS3500
Tape Library The IBM supercomputer at NIWA runs a large number of different
Software simulations, including operational models for weather and wave
● IBM General Parallel File System prediction and research models for weather, climate, oceans and envi-
(GPFS™) ronmental chemistry. It is also available for use by the broader scien-
● IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager tific community in New Zealand, who can access it via KAREN [the
● IBM AIX® 5.3L
● IBM Tivoli Workload Scheduler Kiwi Advanced Research & Education Network].
LoadLeveler®
Speeding through work
FitzRoy is already a major strategic asset for NIWA and New Zealand,
and is supporting the New Zealand scientific community in conducting
internationally significant research. Relative to the Cray T3E super-
computer that it replaced, FitzRoy in its pre-upgrade state offers
3.3 times the processor count and 7.8 times the processor frequency,
45 times the memory and 500 times the disk capacity, yet requires only
3.1 times the electrical power. Its peak performance of 34 trillion float-
ing-point operations per second (teraFlops) is 50 to 80 times higher.
When upgraded, the system will offer 65 teraFlops.
“With higher performance and reliability, the new IBM supercomputer
is enabling our users to accomplish more work in less time,” says
Michael Uddstrom. “For example, one user reported that a 20-year
climate model simulation that used to take one month to complete
is now done in 24 hours. A weather model that took 80 minutes to
complete on 40 percent of the previous system will now run in eight
minutes on about eight percent of the new system—and that’s with a
model twice as detailed as before. This is a key point: we now have the
capacity to significantly increase the complexity (and thereby the qual-
ity) of simulations.”
John Morgan, NIWA Chief Executive, says: “We have no doubt that
FitzRoy will provide benefits for all New Zealanders, as accurate
environmental forecasting is essential for the future growth of
New Zealand’s most important industries.”
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4. For more information
Contact your IBM sales representative or
IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website:
ibm.com/systems/deepcomputing
For more information about NIWA visit: niwa.co.nz
Additionally, financing solutions from IBM Global Financing can
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