Computer giant Dell has been selected by Queen’s University Belfast to deploy a stg£500,000 project to improve the computational infrastructure available to the academic research community.
Dell will deploy a series of high-performance computer clusters around the university and will be the strategic partner responsible for developing, enhancing and exploiting the infrastructure available to all research groups.
Queen’s is a member of the Russell Group of the 20 leading research-intensive universities in the UK and has an international reputation for teaching and research with about 12,000 full-time and 6,000 part-time undergraduates.
A key objective highlighted by Queen’s University in its tender document was to improve the university’s research ratings and continue to develop its reputation and standing as a university at the forefront of research and research-led education in the UK and internationally.
Dell’s work for Queen’s University
To assist Queen’s University in attaining this goal, Dell focused on providing a balanced design, utilising new technology where appropriate that would be of value to Queen’s University and ensuring balance between each of the elements that contribute to the overall compute performance and also designed the system to provide flexibility, ease of use, and simple expandability as new funds become available.
“Dell is helping Queen’s University maximise processing power for our IT budget with a solution that will provide greater performance and scaling, enhanced analysis capabilities, better value and simplified management,” Prof Stan Scott, director of Research for High Performance and Distributed Computing, Queen’s University, said.
Dell has provided a High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) with more than 100 compute nodes, high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnects and a high-performance HPCC-tuned disk subsystem with a simplified management interface.
“Dell is keen to bring the latest in next-generation compute technology to Queen’s to ensure they are at the forefront of research,” Paul Delaney, head of Dell Northern Ireland, added.
