The goal of greater performance at lower costs has propelled clusters to the forefront of High-Performance Computing (HPC). Still, HPC users are demanding better reliability, availability, flexibility, compatibility and power efficiency. Responding to these demands, Appro has introduced the Appro Xtreme-X™ Supercomputer Series based on scalable cluster concept to create next-generation clusters with supercomputer performance. Appro's concept is based on a flexible architecture that groups together clusters to make a unified, fully integrated "Scalable Unit" (SU) that can be provisioned and managed as a stand-alone supercomputer system to deliver sustained capacity computing performance.

Appro Xtreme-X2 System Highlights:
- Fully integrated and pre-packaged solution
- Offer a variety of system configurations
- Scale to 4TF in a single 44U rack
- Support for Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors
- 128 sockets with 512 cores and 4TB of memory per rack
- Improve power and cooling efficiency
- Appro Directed Airflow™ cooling architecture
- Reduce datacenter floor space by 30%
- Improve reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS)
- Redundant (Dual-Rail) Infiniband Interconnect Fabric
- Redundant (Dual-Rail) Ethernet Management Fabric
- Three independently controlled cooling fans per node
- Redundant N+1 power supplies, 90% efficient
- Complete lights-out management system
- Meets production system availability requirements

Appro Reference Architecture Designs
Appro demonstrates performance and scalability using building block reference architecture designs based on customer requirements. The Appro Reference Architecture Designs are based on a 44U Rack Cabinet.
- 1 Rack scales to 4.5TF with 512 cores
- 2 Racks scale to 9TF with 1,024 cores
- 4 Racks scale to 18TF with 2,048 cores
- 8 Racks scale to 36TF with 4,096 cores
- 24 Racks scale to 81TF with 9,216 cores
- 36 Racks scale to 162TF with 18,432 cores
- 72 Racks scale to 325TF with 36,864 cores
- Enables a supercomputing environment to be built with up to 1000TF.
- Offers a complete stack of management software: network, servers, host, scheduling and RAS

Directed Airflow™ Cooling
The Xtreme-X2 features a new Directed Airflow™ cooling configuration designed to take cold air form the datacenter AC under floor directly to the equipment for optimum rack cooling efficiency. Warm air is discharged out of the front of the Xtreme-X1 solution. This configuration reduces datacenter floor space while maximizing cooling efficiency and power consumption. This cooling system features front access for maintenance, allowing racks to be mounted back-to-back to take advantage of the under-floor cooling available in most datacenters. Delivering the cold air directly to the equipment to be cooled eliminates the need for an aisle between the racks. This improves density and saves 30% on floor space. Within the blades themselves, board components are positioned so that processor-heated air flows over the fewest components and is ejected from the blade through the front access panel. More than half of this front panel is perforated to minimize turbulence and reduce pressure.

Balanced Performance
Multi-rail networks provide the lower latency and higher bandwidth required to support multi-core processors with up to 3.2GB/s of usable unidirectional bandwidth between compute nodes.

Appro Cluster Engine™ Management Software
Appro Cluster Engine™ (ACE) Management Software features a complete lights-out management solution that comes pre-installed with every system. This software suite offers a web-based management interface that is easy-to-use, making it possible to control the Xtreme-X2 from any location. The management modules include Network Management, Server Management, Cluster Management and Storage Management. In addition, ACE supports multiple networking topologies to achieve maximum reliability, performance and high availability. It supports root file systems offering instant provisioning for rapid, standard Linux installs on large diskless systems allowing them to boot 64 to 6,400 blades in about the same time. ACE offers a complete, reliable, highly available and serviceable architecture in a total software management package.

Ideal environment
For demanding applications that require higher reliability and better system management delivering a balanced highly-available supercomputer cluster building block for a wide range of HPC applications such as Computational Fluid Dynamics, aerospace and automotive engineering simulations, petroleum exploration and production, scientific visualization for oil discovery and recovery, research in seismic, weather and environmental sciences, defense and classified research production.