Gene Center Deploys AMD's SeaMicro Servers for High-Performance Computing

The Gene Center of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) has chosen SeaMicro servers from AMD (News - Alert) to step up its research capabilities. AMD’s SeaMicro servers will assist the Gene Center in achieving a computational edge for its research.

Researchers utilized AMD's SeaMicro servers in developing a unique 3-D image of a human ribosome by merging over 800,000 images. This new image allows for further understanding of manners in which bacteria ribosomes can be broken down without hurting human ribosomes, as several current antibiotics sometimes do. More effectual novel drugs, which will be more customized to a person's genetic profile, can therefore be discovered.

The Gene Center is a major life sciences research center located in Munich, Germany. The organization carries out extensive computational-based research. Computing performance can be scaled using the 1.28 terabits-per-second of bandwidth offered by AMD's SeaMicro server with Freedom Fabric, eliminating the requirement for costly external InfiniBand interconnections or 10 GbE networking.

Ronald Beckmann, a professor at the Gene Center at LMU, said in a statement, "High-performance computing is critical to the cutting-edge research and groundbreaking discoveries of the LMU Gene Center. AMD's SeaMicro servers provide a computational edge by delivering supercomputer-like performance in the industry's smallest form factor. The server really is a mini-supercomputer in a box, and it is accelerating our research and allowing us to do analysis and break new ground in the field of structural biochemistry."

The SeaMicro servers from AMD, featuring dense form factor and a simplified administration interface, are straightforward to implement. Unlike the HPC clusters or supercomputers that need customized build-outs for facilities and cooling, AMD’s SeaMicro servers can be accommodated in normal server rooms.

Dhiraj Mallick, corporate vice president and general manager for Data Center Server Solutions at AMD, said, "For fields such as genetic research, computing is often a constraint due to the cost of the systems traditionally used. We are breaking that mold to make high-performance computing more widely available. The potential benefits of the research at the Gene Center are tremendous since they are essentially unlocking the secrets of how life works at the molecular level."