SGI high performance computing and data management solutions allow astrophysicists, high energy physicists, plasma physicists, geophysicists and other physical scientists to more rapidly simulate complex phenomena and analyze large amounts of experimental data.

Theoreticians require advanced computation and huge volumes of storage to increase understanding of the behavior of systems ranging from the sub-atomic to stars, galaxies and beyond, while experimentalists increasingly rely on advanced storage systems to accommodate and make sense of the mountains of data ingested from an ever growing array of specialized instrumentation. SGI solutions for Physics allow researchers to:

• Choose high-performance computing solutions tailored to workload and budget.
• SGI® Altix® systems run Linux® and are based on Intel® Itanium® 2 processors and enable compute, memory and I/O scaling within a single shared memory environment. These systems are unsurpassed in their memory and I/O capability and deliver exceptional MPI application performance due to their low-latency and high-bandwidth SGI® NUMAflex® architecture.
• SGI® Altix® XE servers and clusters are based on the dual-core Intel® Xeon® processors which deliver industry leading performance per CPU in an industry standards based Linux single system and cluster environment. These solutions are designed to maximize throughput capacity and scalable application performance for cluster based applications.
• Address huge amounts of data and move it quickly into and out of the system. SGI® Altix® systems implement globally shared memory so that any CPU can directly address any byte of memory or I/O device. By using the SGI® NUMAlink® interconnect fabric, data is accessed at rates up to 200 times faster than possible using conventional clustering interconnects. Complex data sets and complete workflows can run directly in memory instead of requiring I/O, enabling productivity breakthroughs that traditional Linux® clusters or repurposed e-commerce UNIX® servers can't tackle.
• Focus on science, not system and data management. The Altix architecture enables easy installation and administration of a single system, while SGI's data management solutions simplify the storage and archiving of large data sets. SGI Altix servers and SGI Altix XE servers and clusters can be integrated into a single system management and data sharing environment that minimizes system management overhead. By freeing scientific staff to focus on science instead of system and data management, productivity and innovation increase.
• Develop breakthrough solutions with advanced computing technology. By integrating FPGA based SGI® RASC™ technology into Altix systems, users can develop breakthrough capabilities that run 10, 100, or even 1,000 times faster than traditional solutions.
• Maximize ROI. The SGI Altix servers and SGI storage systems deliver scalability and high performance in a cost-effective package. Additionally, SGI Altix XE servers compliment the Altix high performance servers and enable x86 cluster applications to run in both capacity and capability mode.

For additional information:

• University of Washington: Using SGI Altix to Detect the Origins of the Milky Way (PDF 297K)
• University of Leicester: Planet Hunting UK Research Project (PDF 403K)
• SGI® InfiniteStorage Solutions for The Sciences: Reducing Time to Insight through Sophisticated Data Management (PDF 4.2M)