09. February 2024

HPC-Cluster "Marvin" Opening on March 11, 2024 HPC-Cluster "Marvin" Opening on March 11, 2024

Testing phase for experienced users will be re-launched on February 13th

"Marvin", Uni Bonn's supercomputer, installed in 2023, is nearing its final release day. The cluster, consisting of 192 MPP nodes with a total of 18400 compute cores plus an additional 300 NVIDIA GPUs, had been presented to the public in a festive inauguration ceremony on October 20th, marking the start of an intense testing phase allowing highly experienced "power-users" to already use the cluster for numerical simulations while at the same time reporting any potential problems or hickups to the maintenance team at the Computing Centre. This first testing phase started overwhelmingly positively, showing that the performance of the cluster is even higher than had been previously promised by the vendor Megware.

Megware Employees installing Marvin cluster components in the summer of 2023.
Megware Employees installing Marvin cluster components in the summer of 2023. © Lea Hataj / Uni Bonn
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After technical problems occurred concerning the cooling of the cluster, the first testing phase had to be suspended from early December on until now. During the last two months intensive re-thinking and work has been invested into making the cooling more reliable and therefore protect the cluster hardware and running jobs in case of incidents. We are happy to announce that these safety mechanisms have been successfully tested earlier this week, so that we will be able to re-launch the testing phase on Tuesday, February 13th.

This also means that we are back on track towards the final release date for Marvin. The cluster will be accessible by all scientists of the University of Bonn (and their cooperation partners) after registration on our web page starting

March 11, 2024.

After that date, you will be able to apply for access on our website

https://www.hpc.uni-bonn.de

where a web form will become available, a process similar to the one already in use for access to the smaller clusters "Bonna" and "Bender".

Further information on the cluster itself, the registration process, and upcoming introductory workshops can be found on https://www.hpc.uni-bonn.de.