Deploying Darter - A Cray XC30 System

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville acquired a Cray XC30 supercomputer, called Darter, with a peak performance of 248.9 Teraflops. Darter was deployed in late March of 2013 with a very aggressive production timeline - the system was deployed, accepted, and placed into production in only 2 weeks. The Spring Experiment for the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms CAPS largely drove the accelerated timeline, as the experiment was scheduled to start in mid-April. The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors CASL project also needed access and was able to meet their tight deadlines on the newly acquired XC30. Darter's accelerated deployment and operations schedule resulted in substantial scientific impacts within the research community as well as immediate real-world impacts such as early severe tornado warnings [1].