Virtualized Operating System For Supercomputer

The Department Of Energy National Laboratories — New work on the Red Storm supercomputer at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories is helping to make supercomputers more flexible and accessible, in effect removing them from the constraints of their specialized operating systems. Sandia researchers, working with researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico, socialized 4,096 of Red Storm’s total 12,960 computer nodes into accepting a virtual external operating system — a leap of at least two orders of magnitude over previous efforts.

“The goal is to create a more flexible environment for all users,” said Sandia researcher Kevin Pedretti. If supercomputers can be virtualized without sacrificing performance it will increase the utility of these significant national infrastructure investments, he said.