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PARAM Shakti

A state-of-the-art high-performance computing system based on a heterogeneous and hybrid architecture, combining Intel Xeon Skylake processors with NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs for computational efficiency across scientific applications.

Overview

PARAM Shakti is a heterogeneous, hybrid supercomputer based on Intel Xeon Skylake processors and NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs, designed and implemented by the HPC Technologies team at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). It comprises 2 master nodes, 8 login nodes, 10 service/management nodes, and 442 CPU+GPU compute nodes, with a total peak computing capacity of 1.66 PFLOPS.

Its compute nodes are connected via a Mellanox (EDR) InfiniBand interconnect network, and the system uses the Lustre parallel file system for high-throughput storage.

Hybrid CPU + GPU
Architecture
442
Compute Nodes
1.66 PFLOPS
Peak Performance
Mellanox EDR InfiniBand
Interconnect
Lustre
Parallel File System
C-DAC
Designed & Implemented By

Node Configuration

Full Hardware Specifications
Popular

Master Nodes

Master Nodes supervise and coordinate the cluster. They manage hardware health, workloads, and track utilization across all components.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 80 cores
  • Memory = 384 GB
  • Total Memory = 768 GB
  • HDD = 900 GB

Login Nodes

Login Nodes act as user entry points. They support tasks like file transfers, editing scripts, and job submissions, with time and memory limits.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 320 cores
  • Memory = 384 GB
  • Total Memory = 3,072 GB
  • HDD = 900 GB

Service Nodes

Service Nodes handle job scheduling and cluster services. They maintain reliability and ensure smooth day-to-day operation of PARAM Shakti.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 240 cores
  • Memory = 384 GB
  • Total Memory = 2,304 GB
  • HDD = 900 GB

CPU Compute Nodes

CPU Compute Nodes are the workhorses of PARAM Shakti. They execute both interactive and batch jobs with local SSDs for fast scratch storage.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 15,360 cores
  • Memory = 192 GB
  • Total Memory = 73,728 GB
  • SSD = 480 GB

High Memory Nodes

High Memory Nodes provide extended RAM per node, enabling simulations and jobs with very large memory requirements beyond standard compute nodes.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 1,440 cores
  • Memory = 768 GB
  • Total Memory = 27,648 GB
  • SSD = 480 GB

GPU Compute Nodes

GPU Compute Nodes combine CPUs with NVIDIA V100 GPUs. CUDA and OpenCL optimized applications achieve huge speedups for AI and HPC workloads.

  • 2 × Intel Xeon SKL G-6148
  • Cores = 40, 2.4 GHz
  • Total Cores = 880 cores
  • Memory = 192 GB
  • Total Memory = 4,224 GB
  • 2 × NVIDIA V100 (16 GB each)

Storage

PARAM Shakti uses the Lustre parallel file system. It offers scalable and reliable storage with high throughput, ideal for large scientific workloads.

  • Primary Storage = 2.1 PiB
  • Archival Storage = 500 TiB
  • Throughput = 50 GB/s

Operating System

The cluster runs on Linux (CentOS 7.6), a stable operating system widely used in HPC. It provides compatibility and reliable performance for users.

  • OS = Linux
  • Distribution = CentOS 7.6
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Network

System Architecture

NSM/HPC users reach the cluster through a firewall into the login/compute tier, which fans out across four dedicated networks — Secondary (1G), 10G, IPMI, and Infiniband — to the switch tier, and onward to the service, master, and storage nodes.

PARAM Shakti network architecture — login/compute/GPU nodes connect through Secondary (1G), 10G, IPMI, and Infiniband networks to the service, master, and storage nodes. NSM HPC Users Firewall Login Nodes (8 no.) Compute Nodes (384 nos.) ⋮ Compute with High Memory (36 nos.) ⋮ GPU Nodes with NVIDIA V100 (22 nos.) ⋮ Secondary Communication IPMI 10 G (2 nos.) L2 - Infiniband EDR 100 Gbps (18 nos) ⋮ L1 - Infiniband EDR 100 Gbps (28 nos.) ⋮ Service/Management Nodes (8 nos.) ⋮ Master Nodes (2 nos.) Storage Primary Storage (1.5 PiB) Archival Storage (500 TiB) Secondary (1G) 10 G IPMI Infiniband

Param-Seva

Software Stack
HPC Programming Tools Performance Monitoring HPCC IMB/OSU IOR HPCG C-DAC Tools IDE CAPC
Visualization Tools Ferret GrADS ParaView VisIt/ VMD
Application Libraries NetCDF/ HDF/ etc. Math Libraries Python Libraries GNU Scientific Library CHReME
Development Tools Intel Cluster Studio GNU CUDA Toolkit/ OpenACC
Communication Libraries Intel MPI MVAPICH2 Open MPI PGAS C-Chakshu
Middleware Applications and Management Cluster Monitoring/ Help Desk Ganglia C-DAC Tools Nagios XDMoD osTicket
Resource Management/ Scheduling/ Accounting SLURM SLURM Accounting HPC Tasks Automation Scripts
Provisioning OpenHPC (xCAT)
File System NFS Local FS (XFS) Lustre GPFS
Operating Systems Drivers OFED CUDA Network & Storage Drivers Cluster Checker Scripts
Operating System Linux (CentOS 7.x)

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