Supercomputer Marvin: Climate breakdown delays start of operation Supercomputer Marvin: Climate breakdown delays start of operation

The new HPC cluster Marvin, inaugurated on October 20 2023, will have to wait a bit longer for their first regular users. After the climate technology completely failed on the night of November 30, the possible cause for the malfunction is investigated. Luckily, the Supercomputer has not been compromised functionally, it was possible to fix smaller technical defects instantly so the computer is restored and ready for use. However, until the causes have been fully clarified and appropriate measures have been taken to prevent another malfunction, Marvin is currently only running in a very limited test mode to protect the hardware.

Since the beginning of November, Marvin had been in an operating mode in which individual "power users" were able to put the machine through its paces with extensive simulations. These tests were carried out to the full satisfaction of the operations team until the accident on 29/30 November, and synthetic and application benchmarks also showed that the performance of the computer even exceeded expectations.

The registration, which was originally planned for December 2023, has therefore unfortunately been delayed accordingly. "The fact that commissioning is stalling so close to completion is not only disappointing to future users. The HPC team at the HRZ and the HPC/A-Lab would also have liked to celebrate the end of a very intensive year with the completion of the project," says Dirk Barbi, HPC team leader.