The Red Storm Architecture and Early Experiences with Multi-core Processors

Abstract

The Red Storm architecture, which was conceived by Sandia National Laboratories and implemented by Cray, Inc., has become the basis for most successful line of commercial supercomputers in history. The success of the Red Storm architecture is due largely to the ability to effectively and efficiently solve a wide range of science and engineering problems. The Cray XT series of machines that embody the Red Storm architecture have allowed for unprecedented scaling and performance of parallel applications spanning many areas of scientific computing. In this paper, we describe the fundamental characteristics of the architecture and its implementation that have enabled this success, even through successive generations of hardware and software.