Cray Awarded Contract With Germany’s National Meteorological Service

Cray Inc. will upgrade and expand the Cray XC super-computers and Cray Sonexion storage systems at Germany’s National Meteorological Service – the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD).

Located in Offenbach, DWD
is one of the world’s premier weather prediction centers.

The upgraded Cray systems will allow DWD to continue to improve its complex models for providing more accurate weather forecasts for an array of weather responsibilities. With the increase in compute performance and storage capacity, the researchers and scientists at DWD will be able to apply more advanced super-computing technologies towards its mission of meeting the meteorological requirements arising from all areas of economy and society in Germany.

“Super-computers are absolutely vital to our mission of providing important meteorological services for the protection of life and property,” said Dr. Jochen Dibbern, member of the executive board, DWD. “Our Cray super-computers are critical tools for our researchers and scientists, and it’s imperative that we equip our users with highly advanced super-computing technologies.“

“We are honored that DWD has once again turned to Cray to deliver the additional compute power and storage capacity necessary for running more complex numerical weather predictions,” said Dominik Ulmer, Cray’s VP of EMEA operations. “As the clear leader in building super-computers for the world’s top numerical weather prediction centers, we take great pride in knowing that important weather forecasts across the globe are run on Cray super-computers. We are proud of our partnership with DWD and we are pleased it will continue.“

In January 2013, Cray announced it was awarded a contract to provide DWD with two Cray XC30 supercomputers and two Cray Sonexion storage systems. Under the terms of this contract, Cray will upgrade and expand the supercomputers at DWD to Cray XC40 systems, which will include the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family.

As part of this upgrade, DWD will also receive additional Cray Sonexion 2000 scale-out Lustre storage capacity, and a future 12-node Cray CS400 system with the next-generation of the Intel Xeon Phi processor.

The XC series of supercomputers, along with the CS line of cluster supercomputers and the CS-Storm systems, are available with the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 product family. The processors enable peak performance boosts of up to 30% for new and existing XC and CS systems over previous generations.

DWD joins a growing list of Cray customers that will add the Intel Xeon processors to their XC supercomputers. These customers include the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano, Switzerland, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the Met Office, both of which are located in the UK. Additionally, the CS400 cluster supercomputer at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany will also include the new Intel Xeon processors.

“DWD’s selection of Cray’s new family of supercomputers, powered by the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v4 product family, will enable significant improvement in their weather prediction models,” said Hugo Saleh, director of marketing, HPC Platform Group, Intel Corporation. “Combining Cray supercomputers with Intel’s new Xeon processor E5-2695 v4 and Intel Xeon Phi processor, both elements of the Intel Scalable System Framework, will enable DWD researchers and scientists to improve the resolution of regional and worldwide weather forecasts enabling for more accurate prediction and safeguarding against inclement weather.”

Consisting of product and multiple years of service, the contract to upgrade and expand the Cray systems at DWD is valued at about $11 million. Product deliveries are expected in 2016.