Abstract

The speed of the three supercomputers CRAY-1M, CRAY-X/MP, FUJITSU VP-200 is measured several times. There exist technical numbers like cycle time, start-up times, etc. and numbers for the speed of basic arithmetic operations depending on the vector length, for kernel programs and for a few special production programs. In this article some numbers and some experiences are given for a broader program set, real production programs from a heterogenous workload, typical for a university computer center environment with technical oriented research problems. The intention was to measure the relative speed to the CONTROL DATA CYBER 76, the main computer which the Regionales Rechenzentrum für Niedersachsen (RRZN) at the University of Hannover has operated for more than 10 years. For replacing this computer some investigations were necessary for benchmarking some new computers and supercomputers. Experiences are given with the migration of real programs to the supercomputers and a used benchmark is described. The measured speed factors are given for the three supercomputers compared with the CYBER 76. Very remarkable is the big range of the different speed factors. Some global thoughts about benchmarking, the interpretation of the results for the used benchmark and some special programs with their effects are discussed.

Author Keywords: Benchmarking; CRAY-1M; CRAY-X/MP; FUJITSU VP-200; heterogeneous workload; vector computer

Article Outline

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