7 many years of distinction: Carolina’s 1st pc and its present cluster

Modern computing appears wildly completely different from 1959, when Carolina acquired its first pc, Sperry Rand’s UNIVAC 1105.

Computing right this moment is ubiquitous. Since 2000, Carolina has required all undergraduate college students to have a laptop computer pc. Campus-wide Wi-Fi supplies 24/7 web entry. College, workers and college students depend on computer systems for analysis, instructing, studying and their work supporting the College in its mission.

Regardless of that ubiquity, we are able to nonetheless draw parallels — and notice stark contrasts — between that first “supercomputer” and Carolina’s major analysis computing cluster, Longleaf.

The UNIVAC 1105 arrived on campus with an enormous duty as one in every of 4 computer systems in america to course of information for the 1960 census. Slightly than servicing one monumental job at a time, Longleaf permits simultaneous analysis endeavors throughout all disciplines together with the humanities.

Pioneering computing at Carolina aimed to “enlarge the boundaries of human data in all areas of concern to its colleges and college students,” based on a pamphlet printed for the dedication of the Computation Middle, which housed the UNIVAC 1105. At present, Longleaf helps perform this mission, servicing almost 200 College departments and establishments.

Sperry Rand UNIVAC 1105

The location of many firsts, the nation’s first public analysis college was dwelling to one of many first digital processors utilized by the U.S. Census Bureau. Housed within the basement of Phillips Corridor, the UNIVAC 1105 was some of the superior computer systems in existence on the time of its set up in 1959. Regardless of the pc’s unique function of processing census information, the College championed the machine’s potential for departmental versatility.

• Price: $2.4 million ($24 million in right this moment’s cash)
• Weight: 19 tons
• Reminiscence: 36-54 kilobytes
• Storage: 5 megabytes of tape storage
• Configuration:
  • • Monolithic, which means it was a single pc that might solely be interacted with straight by system directors.
    • The pc may solely service one single-threaded, non-interruptible job at a time.
• Usership: Due to its restricted capability, after performing 1960 census duties, the pc was primarily utilized by College departments and items resembling UNC Finance and UNC Human Sources.

Earlier than the set up of the UNIVAC 1105, the flooring of Phillips Corridor needed to be strengthened with metal beams. (College Archives)

“Wherever quantitative considering, talking, writing, or motion is concerned, companies of computing gadgets are required. The depth and scope of those quantitative actions are decided, in a big measure, by the flexibility, velocity, and different attributes of the computing amenities used.”

— William M. Whyburn, vp for graduate research and analysis of the consolidated college, 1957

Longleaf cluster

Carolina’s major analysis computing cluster, Longleaf, shouldn’t be the quickest, strongest system. However, its heterogeneous construction permits the cluster to vary and advance with shifting computing demand, says John McGee, assistant vice chancellor for ITS Analysis Computing. Longleaf is accessible to anybody with an ONYEN via a fair-share system that units up a queue for computing demand. For bigger initiatives, nonetheless, researchers are inspired to buy a part of the cluster for his or her particular want.

Longleaf’s accessibility mannequin is one thing that basically differentiates the computing cluster from its 1959 predecessor whereas on the similar time attaining the earliest imaginative and prescient for computing at Carolina — to construct data in each educational realm.

• Price: $4 million
• Weight: 2 tons
• Reminiscence: 140 terabytes — over 2.5 billion occasions extra RAM reminiscence than the UNIVAC 1105
• Storage: 8 petabytes of laborious drives — 1.6 billion occasions the storage of the UNIVAC 1105
• Configuration:
  • • Heterogeneous cluster mannequin, which means that the pc consists of 300 completely different nodes — particular person computing constructions — that may service completely different initiatives.
    • Altogether the nodes present round 23,000 central processing items, a few of which might double their precise output via hyperthreading. Mixed, the nodes maintain 140 terabytes of RAM storage.
• Usership: From February 2021 to January 2022, about 2,000 completely different customers submitted round 30,000,000 jobs to Longleaf. That quantities to almost 120 million hours (greater than 13,689 years!) of computing time.

On this element shot of the Longleaf cluster, every of the tons of of inexperienced lights is a tiny laborious drive for storage. Every of the vertically organized blue lights represents a single node/server.

“William Whyburn’s assertion (above) nonetheless rings true right this moment for these of us in Analysis Computing. We’re seeing a major rise in demand for computing and information assets from an growing vary of disciplines — it’s not only for census information or climate modeling lately. Longleaf might not be probably the most highly effective cluster amongst our friends, however with its versatile, multi-purpose construction, we’re in a position serve extremely numerous wants from nearly any researcher throughout disciplines on campus and all over the world. The impression of Longleaf and the ITS Analysis Computing crew are evidenced by the wonderful depth and scope of the world-class analysis group that we serve right here at UNC.”

— John McGee, assistant vice chancellor for ITS Analysis Computing, 2022