Boosting high-performance computing with optics

Briefing: Optical Interconnect

Part 2: High-performance computing

IBM has adopted optical interfaces for its latest POWER7-based high-end computer system. Gazettabyte spoke to IBM Fellow, Ed Seminaro, about high-performance computing and the need for optics to address bandwidth and latency requirements.

“At some point when you go a certain distance you have to go to an optical link” 

Ed Seminaro, IBM Fellow 

IBM has used parallel optics for its latest POWER7 computing systems, the Power 775. The optical interfaces are used to connect computing node drawers that make up the high-end computer. Each node comprises 32 POWER7 chips, with each chip hosting eight processor cores, each capable of running up to four separate programming tasks or threads.  

Using optical engines, each node – a specialised computing card - has a total bandwidth of 224, 120 Gigabit-per-second (12x10Gbps) VCSEL-based transmitters and 224, 120Gbps receivers. The interfaces can interconnect up to 2,048 nodes, over half a million POWER7 cores, with a maximum network diameter of only three link hops.

IBM claims that with the development of the Power 775, it has demonstrated the superiority of optics over copper for high-end computing designs.

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Framing the information age

Maurice Broomfield is a 94-year-old photographer who has documented examples of 20th century industry. His lifelong work is about to be shown at two exhibitions in the UK, as detailed in an interview with the Financial Times. It made me wonder whether anyone is doing the equivalent for telecom and datacom? Mega data centres as IT cathedrals?

When writing features for FibreSystems Europe, I repeatedly asked for high-resolution striking images. The magazine's editors always wanted photos that included people, like Maurice Broomfield's photos.  Getting hold of such images did happen but not often.

Inspired by the Financial Times’ interview and Maurice Broomfield's beautiful images, some of the better images sent are presented here.

IBM data centre

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