Morocco unleashes one of the world’s fastest and energy-efficient supercomputer powered by PowerM and IBM

Morocco unleashes one of the world’s fastest and energy-efficient supercomputer powered by PowerM and IBM – Published 02 January 2021 – ID PM00121 – 2 min read

Abstract

The African continent is witnessing increased weather and climate variability, and climate change. Natural disasters related to weather and climate have become all too frequent and more extreme in intensity.

As climate science research becomes more data- and resource-intensive, how can a High Performance Computing  powered by PowerM and IBM give the National Weather Company of Morocco scientists the fast insight they need to advance vital work?

Challenges

There is an increasing need, in Morocco, for the delivery of sector specific weather, climate and water services to ensure food security, improved water resource management, disaster risk reduction and better health.

Accurate and timely weather forecasts and climate analyses and predictions should further improve human safety, prosperity and livelihood and preserve precious natural resources to the benefit of communities.

Numerical weather prediction is demanding the highest levels of available computer power.

HPC should provide a more accurate representation of the climate models, enable and enhance prediction of extreme weather conditions, and also the reasons and impacts:

  • Refine the resolution of the current forecast scenarios model
  • Run fine-scale marine forecast models
  • Pursue its research and development-oriented development axes in the field of numerical forecasting within the ALADIN consortium
  • Use new variational techniques in data assimilation and continue climate research work

The Solution

The new HPC delivers high-resolution and hourly-updating forecast models needs infrastructure that can not only accommodate big data but can also supply massive computing capacity and advanced graphic rendering.

PowerM/IBM solutions and services stack:

  • IBM Storage with 1 PB
  • IBM Spectrum Protect 8
  • IBM Spectrum Scale 5
  • IBM Spectrum Control 5
  • Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers SR850 for compute node (11520 cores)
  • Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers SR630 for storage and services node
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for HPC Head Node
  • Lenovo Integrated XClarity Module,
  • Mellanox EDR Network
  • xCat 2.x
  • Slurm Workload Manager
  • PowerM Migration Services
  • PowerM ExaaS for Spectrum Protect More info
  • PowerM ExaaS for Spectrum Scale More info
  • PowerM ExaaS for Spectrum Control More info
  • PowerM ExaaS for Storage More info
  • IBM Global Technology Services
  • IBM Labs Services

Benefits

The HPC provides more than 1PFLOPS

Huge Improvement in forecasting resolution across Morocco :

  • Refine the resolution of its current 2.5 km AROME model to 1.3 k
  • Execute the ALARO model with a resolution of 5 km
  • Refine the resolution of its current 10 km ALADIN model to 7.5 km
  • Refine the resolution of its current 18 km NORAF model to 10 km
  • Execute the Arpège-climat and Aladin-climat models with finer resolution
  •  Run marine forecasting models on a fine scale
  • Pursue its development axes oriented research and development in terms of numerical forecasting within the ALADIN consortium
  • Run several forecast scenarios based on the AROME or ALADIN model (overall forecast with several members);
  • Use new variational techniques in data assimilation
  • Continue research work in the fields of climate and environment

HPC performance development over years

Disclaimer

This content was provided for informational purposes only. The opinions and insights discussed are mine and do not necessarily represent those of Power Maroc S.A.R.L.

Nothing contained in this article is intended to, nor shall have the effect of, creating any warranties or representations from Power Maroc S.A.R.L or its Partners (particularly IBM, DELL Technologies, Vmware, Redhat and Oracle), or altering the terms and conditions of any agreement you have with Power Maroc S.A.R.L