LIGO researchers navigate waves of data using Nor-Tech Clusters with Intel® Xeon® X5650 processors

LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) is a large-scale physics experiment dealing with the detection of gravitational waves—distortions in the fabric of space-time caused by the movements of massive objects in space. Because gravitational waves carry information about the events that caused them outward from the source, scientists believe they can be used as a way of observing events throughout the universe by detecting the distortions, which are measurable only as incomprehensibly small waves by the time they reach Earth.

Nor-Tech has developed a large, four-tower cluster to aid LIGO scientists in their research. In conjunction with LIGO's existing infrastructure, the cluster is being used to sift through signal data coming in from LIGO's extremely sensitive interferometers, which detect evidence of gravitational waves by measuring movements at sub-atomic levels.

This cluster has 1920 physical Intel CPU cores and 3840 logical CPU cores, as well as 7 terabytes of HPC class memory. The six-core, twelve-thread Xeon X5650 processors, with advanced features like ECC memory support, Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization Technology, are built to handle the ever-changing demands of a virtualized and consolidated computing environment.

The Next Generation of Intelligent Server Processors

The cluster Nor-Tech developed is built on the Intel® Xeon® processor 5650.

Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series automatically regulates power consumption and intelligently adjusts server performance as needed. Enabled by Intel® Intelligent Power Technology, these processors shift into the lowest available power state, while Intel® Turbo Boost Technology intelligently adjusts performance according to your needs.

LIGO investigators noticed a significant increase in performance when they enabled Hyper-threading in the Xeon CPUs. Hyper-threading improves parallelization of computations performed on PC microprocessors. For each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two virtual processors, and shares the workload between them when possible.

Nor-Tech has developed and built clusters for a wide variety of scientific applications, including projects funded by the NSF, NIH and DARPA. Our system engineers will work with you to give you the best cluster software and cluster hardware solutions available today.

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