Category: Hardware

RCD is excited to announce that we have added five new powerful compute nodes to the Palmetto 2 cluster. The hardware in the new nodes is optimized for supporting large Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) workflows.

Each node has the following hardware specifications:

• Model: Dell PowerEdge XE9680
• CPU: 2x Intel Xeon Platinum 8470
• Memory: 1 TB
• Networking:
  • 8x NDR (3.2Tbit aggregate) Internode Communication
  • 200Gbit NDR200 Infiniband for Storage
  • 100Gb Ethernet
• GPU: 8x NVIDIA Tesla H100 80G

These are available in the cluster for immediate use by Clemson users. We encourage you to make the most of these new resources!

We are excited to announce that RCD has finalized an order for 65 new CPU nodes that will be installed in the Slurm Beta cluster.

Each new node has the following specifications:

• CPU: 2x AMD EPYC 9654 – 96-core per socket, 192 cores total
  
• Memory: 768 GB
  
• Network: 200G NDR200 IB, 25G Ethernet

These nodes will replace many of our aging C1 nodes, which are the oldest in the cluster. At the time of writing, the C1 portion of the cluster has a total of 9,680 CPU cores, and 7,044 of those cores will be removed over the next several months. Nodes from phases 3, 4, and 6 will be removed this winter, and nodes from phases 1a, 1b, 5c, and 5d will be removed later. Phases 2a and 2c will remain available.

Our new purchase will provide 12,480 cores, so there will be a net gain in the total amount of CPU cores and memory in the cluster. In addition, the new nodes will feature the latest generation of CPU architecture, and we expect a vast improvement in single-core performance compared to the removed nodes. Once the nodes are installed, our team will provide benchmarks.

RCD will make up to 35 nodes available for sale to interested faculty members who would like priority access. Please see our purchasing guide for pricing and details.

We expect the new nodes to be installed and available in the Slurm Beta cluster early in the Spring 2024 semester.

Clemson University has funded the purchase of additional compute resources for the Palmetto Cluster. The infrastructure team has added 40 new nodes with 2x 32-core CPUs, 256GB of RAM, and 2x NVIDIA A100 GPUs to the cluster. These resources will be for shared use by the Clemson research community.