Peter Kiewit Institute
From left, Victor Perez and Barbara Carlson of Panasas Inc. present a check to Dick Holland, lead donor to the Holland Computing Center, Walter Scott Jr. and University of Nebraska President J.B. Milliken to initiate “The Panasas Scholarship Fund in Memory of Mary Holland.”
Holland Computing Center Opens to global audience outed as key elements
Tin the search for
knowledge and answers that could have a tremendous and positive impact on the world, the Holland Computing Center and its supercomputing tenant, named Firefly, were unveiled to considerable acclaim Dec.7. Nearly 150 corporate leaders, scientists, academics, and local, state and national government, military, civic and philanthropic leaders attended a daytime reception and tour of the facility before gathering at a formal dinner. 26 • Spring 2008
Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder, Joint Functional Component commander for Global Strike and Integration with the U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) at Offutt Air Force Base, called Firefly “an impressive system.” “I have toured other supercomputer facilities and, architecturally, I can assure you the Holland Center is cutting edge,” Elder said in an interview. “In terms of application, so much of what we do right now, in particular regarding numerical
analysis, our modeling data to date has been rough. There are a lot of things that precise modeling can support. This Center is capable of improving that modeling. “It’s almost endless, the things we can use it for. It’s definitely a step forward. Its connectivity, in terms of bandwidth, is really impressive,” he continued. “Other centers might have the computing power, but the Holland Center has the bandwidth to match.” Elder said the Global Innovation and Strategy
Center (GISC), within walking distance of The Peter Kiewit Institute (PKI), “will definitely” put Firefly to good use. “A lot of modeling there has typically been outsourced,” he said. “Going forward, there won’t be any reason to look outside. It’s right here.” The Holland Computing Center is named for Richard and Mary Holland, the principal donors. The name Firefly indicates that the nodes and machines in a supercomputing cluster have distinct features but work together to converse with the whole, much the same as the rhythmic bursts of light from fireflies allow them to communicate with and within a larger group. Attendees received a brief glimpse of Firefly’s hardware and capability from David Pratt, Ph.D., chief scientist, fellow and vice president for technology at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a PKI partner. The supercomputer has 150 terabytes of storage “enough to hold a novel 750 billion pages long,” Dr. Pratt said. In terms of memory, Firefly has 8 gigabytes of memory per node and 1,151 nodes, for a total of 9 terabytes of memory. “Those are amazing numbers,” he said. “Firefly puts PKI in the top eight academic supercomputing centers in the country.” Dr. Pratt referred to Nebraska as the new Silicon Prairie, thanks to UNOALUM