In August, Goddard added 4,128 new-generation Intel "Nehalem" processors to its Discover high-end computing system. The upgraded Discover will serve as the centerpiece of a new climate simulation capability at Goddard. Discover will host NASA's modeling contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading scientific organization for assessing climate change, and other national and international climate initiatives.
And they're adding another 4,128 in a couple of months. This will be the first major. Nehalem based climate simulation project. Details here.

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Comments
They don't say what operating system they're using. :(
Posted by: MadScientist | August 30, 2009 6:13 AM
Here ya go MadScientist http://www.nccs.nasa.gov/discover_front.html
Posted by: Alan | August 30, 2009 7:06 AM
Sorry, I thought it went without saying ...
Posted by: Greg Laden | August 30, 2009 10:54 AM
Not MS Visdud HPC then? Gee, when will people who know what they're doing believe that Linux is no good and that MS has the One True operating system?
Speaking of HPC, does anyone have the dirt on any of those poor groups who did fall for the MS sales pitch? I can't recall anyone saying what a wonderful system it is after the original announcement of the purchase order...
Posted by: MadScientist | August 30, 2009 2:46 PM
MadScientist, what are you talking about?
Posted by: Enoch | August 30, 2009 9:12 PM
Something like this pretty well has to be run on a linux core for so many reasons it's obnoxious to go through them. A couple of them would include requirements of open architecture, ability to scale the hardware up and the OS functionality down, ease of scripting and job scheduling, etc, etc.
Anyone happen to have a picture of the farm? Pictures of large computing farms give me the warm fuzzies. Heck, even personal farms do.
Posted by: Spiv | August 31, 2009 10:38 AM
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/380996main_Discover_Expansion_lg.jpg
Posted by: Greg Laden | August 31, 2009 10:58 AM
nice. So clean!
Posted by: Spiv | August 31, 2009 1:04 PM