The Texas Advanced Computing Center and the University of Texas announced details on the latest in computing gear to enter their Austin campus.  The $9 million machine, named “Lonestar”, will land on the J.J. Pickle Research Campus early next year.  Wait, don’t they already have a “Lonestar” machine?  Indeed they do, but this version is a big upgrade.

The new system, like its predecessors, will be dedicated to open science research.  As such, it will join its older [and larger] brother “Ranger” as being served out to Teragrid consumers.  How much new research?  302 Tflops worth.  Not too shabby.

I think the most interesting thing about this system is that it’s really optimized for achieving real performance on scientific applications, and that’s an important thing to note,” [Jay] Boisseau [TACC Director] said.

The new system cost was split roughly three ways.  The National Science Foundation [NSF] picked up roughly one-third of the cost.  The University of Texas and a consortium of other Texas schools [Texas A&M, Texas Tech, et.al], each fielded a third of the cost.  Overall, that’s not a bad split.

What about the hardware?  For those hardware-crazy readers in the audience, Lonestar will be made up of 1,888 Dell M610 PowerEdge blade servers.  Each node will include two six-core Intel X5600 Westmere processors.

The system will be built on open-system architecture, which means it can be expanded as needed, said John Mullen , Dell’s vice president of global higher education. That’s a cost-effective switch from proprietary systems of the past, he said.

For more info on the new digs headed to Austin, read the story here.

Hook Em’ Horns!