Kan Balam ( Spanish pronunciation:kan' balaːm, Tzotzil Maya pronunciation: 'kʱaŋ βalɒm) is a

computer cluster A computer cluster is a set of computers that work together so that they can be viewed as a single system. Unlike grid computers, computer clusters have each node set to perform the same task, controlled and scheduled by software. The comp ...

located in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, on the main campus of the

UNAM The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

. With a rated capacity of 7.1

teraFLOPS In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate meas ...

, 3.02 TB of RAM and 160 TB of storage. It started working on January 16, 2007 and was ranked as the number one in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

until June 2008. The current best supercomputer in Latin America is run by

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. Among the objectives of this super computer is to allow Mexican researchers to work with highly modern infrastructure without the necessity of leaving the country, thus helping to stop the brain drain that the country has had in the last years. The principal subjects aided by this computer are

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

particle physics Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...

quantum physics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

and is mainly devoted towards seismic engineering. It will also be used for weather measurements and it will be available for public and private companies.

Characteristics

Processing

The computer has 1368

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

Opteron 2.6 GHz

processors A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

and 3016 GB RAM, distributed in 337 calculation nodes, each with 8 GB RAM and two

DUO Duo may refer to: Places *Duo, West Virginia, an unincorporated community and coal town in Greenbrier County, West Virginia *Duo, Tampere, a shopping centre in Hervanta, Tampere, Finland * DUO, a twin-tower development in Singapore Arts, enterta ...

and in five specialized nodes with 64 GB RAM each.

Storage

KanBalam has a storage system of 768

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

s, with 200 GB each.

Interconnection

The processing nodes communicate with the storage system in a high-speed

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. It connects 576 ports with 2 switches infiniband, reaching a speed of the order of 10 Gbyte/s.

Control

The computer has 4 HP service nodes.

OS

Kan Balam runs in the

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version ...

Operative System.

Issues

At the very beginning the computer was unable to run at optimal speed or make use of the full power of the processors, a problem which DGSCA was already well aware of (it was inaugurated before its final installation was completed). Technically a whole 1/3 of the nodes were unable to run due to temperature issues in the work room (when running all nodes at 100% their capacity). In recent dates, the computer's performance has been stabilized (with the addition of two more cooling units) and is near optimal condition. This prompted an alarmist reaction among the first users which provoked a local periodical to falsely publish and fabricate a supposed "meltdown" of the nodes in early June 2007. In 2011, UNAM acquired the Miztli supercomputer, an HP cluster with 5320 Cores, speed of 118 Tflops, 13 Tbytes RAM, 344 HP Proliant servers.

References

External links

Gaceta UNAM N°3953. La UNAM, líder del supercómputo en AL

La Jornada - La Kan Balam puede realizar 7.1 billones de operaciones matemáticas por segundo

{{National Autonomous University of Mexico X86 supercomputers National Autonomous University of Mexico Science and technology in Mexico