The Inquirer
THE US NATIONAL Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced plans for an upgrade to its weather predicting system, in the form of a 776 petaflop supercomputer hybrid from Cray and IBM.
The news follows the predictions of 'Stormageddon' in New York, which would have seen two and a half feet of snow dumped on the city, but which failed to materialise, annoying offices and schools which had closed down for the impending storm.
NOAA's computer modelling got it right, however, predicting that the storm would miss New York and dump its load on the ocean to the east, but the prediction took up all of the 213 teraflops in the current system and, according to Computerworld, the time has come to update.
The original plan was to upgrade its existing IBM systems, but security concerns were raised following the sale of the IBM x86 server business to Lenovo last year, and as a result Cray was brought in to create a hybrid between the old and the new.
Stalwart supercomputer vendor Cray recently announced the XC40, offering up to 384 processors in a single cabinet.
NOAA has confirmed that it will continue to source parts for the existing servers from IBM, not Lenovo, and aims to have the full 776 petaflop system online in time for the hurricane season.
Relations between the US and China over technology have been frosty in recent years, and the IBM-Lenovo deal was stuck in the process of being vetted for nearly a year as both sides scrutinised each other's motives.
The government's decision to sidestep Lenovo suggests that the ice has yet to thaw. µ
lol, where is that shocker smiley when you need it...
