16_0938_SMMJ_REDACTED.pdf

v1.0_APRIL2016

BRAND NAME SPECIFICATION

ASECC Lab Cluster Upgrade

PR 1300541672

BACKGROUND:

Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Newport (NUWCDIVNPT) has a requirement to upgrade its high Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) to allow the

Division to model new projects that currently exceed existing processing limitations.

The models needing this capability span multiple NUWCDIVNPT departments and programs.

The models the systems represent are too big to build physical tests

. The models of these systems are extremely complex and detailed.

Precision and accuracy are critical and imperative

. Current

ASECC resources, with modifications, can handle parts of these models measured at a single frequency. However, performing the tests in batches this small will take much longer than any of the ASECC client projects can afford. The loss of fidelity in running small batches may constitute a failure of the models being built.

This procurement supports the ASECC Lab on the NUWC network, and adds enhancements to the components added to the

Cluster in FY12 under NUWCDIVNPT Contract Number N66604-12-C-

2148. The estimated value of this procurement of which the Brand Name Specified components are estimated at

REQUIREMENT:

The following table lists the Government’s required components for this procurement. Note the

Government’s customized system configurations are contained in an attachment to this document entitled, Government System Configuration Specifications.

COMPONENT DESCRIPTION QTY.

Hyper Node 4U Rackmount Hyper Compute Node 1

Storage Node 4U Rackmount Storage System 1

Analysis Workstation Floor Standing Tower System 1

40GBs (40/10 GBE

QSFR/SFP+)

Ethernet Switch

A NIAP or DISA APLITS approved 40Gig Ethernet

QSFP/SFP+ switch

1U Tray Console Keyboard, mouse, monitor mountable in an 19 inch rack mountable 1U pull out tray

System Footprint All items must fit within 14U of 19 inch rack space, except the analysis workstation

N/A

Maintenance and

Warranty

- All software must include three (3) years of maintenance from time of delivery.

- All hardware must include a three (3) year warranty from the original equipment manufacturer from time of delivery and include the following:

24x7 phone support;

next business day parts; and failed disk replacement program allowing the

Government to retain the failed drive for destruction and only provide a photocopy of the label for proof of failure.

-No on-site support representative is required.

N/A

BRAND NAME SPECIFICATION:

Items that are brand name components with no substitutions allowed and each associated estimated price is as follows:

HYPER NODE PART NUMBER QTY

UNIT

COST

EXTENDED

COST

Intel Xeon E7-8890 v3 2.5GHz

Eighteen-Core Processors

Intel Xeon Processor

E7-8890 v3 (45M

Cache, 2.50GHz)

Crucial MX200 1 TB SATA III

2.5 inch SSD configured as

RAID 6

CT1000MX200SSD1 22

Crucial MX200 500 GB SATA

III 2.5 inch Solid State Mirrored

Boot Drive

CT500MX200SSD1 2

FusionIO SX300-6400 6.4 TB

PCI.E High Speed SSDs

SDFACCMOS-6T40-

SF1

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

(RHEL6) Server, Standard, (4

Sockets - Up to 1 Guest), installed w/ 3 years support

Red Hat Enterprise

Linux Server, 6, Standard (Physical or

Virtual Nodes)

Red Hat Scalable File System

Add-On, Standard, installed w/ 3 years support

Red Hat Scalable File

System Add-On, Standard

STORAGE NODE PART NUMBER QTY

UNIT

COST

EXTENDED

COST

Intel Xeon E5-2643 V3 3.4GHz

Six-Core Processor

Intel Xeon Processor

E5-2643 v3 (20M

Cache, 3.40GHz)

Crucial MX200 1 TB SATA III

2.5 inch SSD for mirrored system disks

CT1000MX200SSD1 2

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

(RHEL6) Server, (1-2 sockets, up to 1 guest), installed w/ 3 years support

Red Hat Enterprise

Linux Server, 6, Standard (Physical or

Virtual Nodes)

Red Hat Scalable File System

Add-On, Standard, installed w/ 3 years support

Red Hat Scalable File

System Add-On, Standard

ANALYSIS WORKSTATION PART NUMBER QTY

UNIT

COST

EXTENDED

COST

Intel Xeon E5-2667 v3 3.2GHz

Eight-Core Processor

Intel Xeon Processor

E5-2667 v3 (20M

Cache, 3.20GHz)

Crucial MX200 1 TB SATA III

2.5 inch SSD system disk

CT1000MX200SSD1 1

Crucial MX200 1 TB SATA III

2.5 inch SSD configured as

RAID 5

CT1000MX200SSD1 7

nVIDIA K6000 super high resolution graphics card

VCQK6000-PB 1

Microsoft Windows 10 Pro w/ 3 years support

Windows 10 Pro 1

Roxio Creator NXT 4 w/ 3 years support

Creator NXT Pro 4 -

PHY

TOTAL BRAND NAME

COMPONENTS

This procurement is for HPCC enhancements within the NUWCDIVNPT ASECC cluster. This requirement addresses the need for the capability of processing exceptionally large models

. The enhancements consist of a hyper compute node, a storage node, an analysis workstation, and increased network throughput on the cluster backend to support multiple projects that require a minimum of 6 Terabytes of shared RAM memory of active data space. The enhancements will address the need to expand current productivity levels when servicing ASECC users’ mathematical computation requirements. By increasing the processing capability, jobs will finish faster freeing up solver licenses for other jobs thereby increasing overall output.

Procurement of the components listed in the attached component system configuration, some of which are specified brand name components, are required to update scientific computational equipment that runs physics-based modelling methods of design. Larger models are being designed that require state of the art technology.

The specified brand name components included in this procurement, and as shown in the table above, are vital to ensure NUWCDIVNPT, , maintains a homogeneous environment for ASECC Lab to handle the larger physics-based models being built at the Command.

Further discussion of each specified brand name component is as follows:

1. INTEL PROCESSORS

Intel Processors are required for compatibility with existing systems at NUWCDIVNPT.

The Intel Xeon E7-8890 v3 2.5 GHz 18-Core Processor, the Intel Xeon E5-2643 V3 3.4 GHz

6-Core Processor and, the Intel Xeon E5-2667 v3 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor, are 4 th

Generation Intel Xeon v3 processors of the Haswell family of Intel processor microarchitecture, with improved graphics, battery life, and security over earlier architectures.

The Intel Haswell family’s instruction set includes the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)

256-bit instruction set with wider vectors, new extensible syntax and rich functionality with improved performance for transcendental mathematics. These capabilities are incorporated into the code of the primary mathematical solvers currently in use in the ABAQUS and LS-

DYNA software application suites running in the Advanced Scientific and Engineering Computation Center (ASECC).

The ASECC Cluster workload is expanding and the ASECC’s user requirements have increased. Since five to sixteen software licenses are required per ABAQUS job, for example, the number of jobs that can be run in parallel is limited by the total number of software licenses. In order to maintain current productivity levels when servicing ASECC users’ computation requirements, the increased processing capability of the Haswell AVX instruction set is needed to use the code incorporated into the code of the mathematical solvers run on the ASECC Cluster. By increasing execution rates jobs finish faster, freeing up solver licenses for other jobs to utilize, thereby increasing overall output, compensating for the lower number of software licenses.

Software and hardware running in the ASECC computational cluster currently run on Intel

Processors. The three different nodes included in this requirement (the hyper node, the storage node, and the analysis workstation) execute the same instruction set and share the same architecture. Therefore, they all require Intel processors for compatibility with the existing ASECC application software and cluster hardware and are the only components that meet the Government’s minimum requirements.

2. CRUCIAL SOLID STATE DRIVES

Crucial Solid State Drives (SSD) are required for compatibility with existing systems in the

ASECC lab. To keep the lab’s high performance computing systems functioning at the highest efficiency levels and maximum availability, it is necessary to provide high speed storage to supplement the large memory footprint of these systems; support the largest

Abaqus models that are run on the system; and to ensure uninterrupted runtime during long scientific calculations. The storage devices must be capable of managing the system storage disk space at least at memory speed levels;

The ASECC staff, working with NUWCDIVNPT users, measured the necessary performance for large striped (data across 2 or more disks) storage devices. Using the fastest available rotational disk drive technology (15000 RPB disks) did not meet the throughput needs of the extremely large Abaqus models being run on the ASECC clusters. To meet these needs, the

Crucial SSDs are needed.

The Crucial MX200 SSD family incorporates Redundant Array of Independent NAND

(RAIN) technology from Micron, its parent company, to provide a 1.5 million hours Mean-

Time-Between-Failure (MTBF) rating, Power Loss Protection, and Data Path Protection; it employs a thermal throttling mechanism to protect against overheating, and Dynamic Write

Acceleration caching technology built into the NAND for power efficiency. Since these devices will be used as a SSD RAID to provide disk storage for the model, the drive speed across the entire disk space is the most important factor. Other manufacturer products specify faster transfer rates, but those rates are for a limited (less than 10%) amount of the total drive's capacity. Since NUWCDIVNPT’s users work on models that exceed the total capacity on each of these drives and require striping across all of them for speed and capacity, fast cache on each drive will be overrun long before it can be emptied into the much slower primary NAND storage on each drive. The Crucial implementation provides a consistent transfer rate across the entire individual MX200 drives capacity.

The ASECC lab, in meeting the utilization requirements of NUWCDIVNPT’s users, requires SSDs that are tested to perform at the highest currently available transfer rates across the entire storage capacity and have longevity, measured in total TBs transferred in the life of the drive, that are above 300 TBs transferred without any of the drives showing degradation.

The costs of including an additional manufacturer is the increased risk of failure while in operation. This will drive down the maintainability numbers for sustained compute node operations and the ability to bring user models to completion. Additionally, any loss in functionality forces users to wait in queues longer and those running will consume available limited software tokens longer. Put a different way, if drives with lower MTBFs were included instead, more instances of compute node down time due to drive failures are expected.

The Crucial SSDs drives are self-encrypting, thus strengthening NUWCDIVNPT’s security posture .

In addition to the requirements for compatibility with existing systems in the ASECC lab, and faster performance required for the mathematical computations that may run for several hours and even days, it is critical that the SSD drives used do not malfunction during multiple daily runs. The Crucial SSDs are the only components that meet the Government’s minimum requirements.

3. FUSIONIO SX300-6400 6.4 TB PCI.E HIGH SPEED SOLID STATE DRIVE

CARDS

The mathematical solvers run on the ASECC cluster require a large, high speed cache space for intermediate calculations. These calculations, specific to one user job, may run for several hours, limiting availability of the ASECC software licenses for the other

ASECC users. Therefore, speed during calculations is critical to release and make available software licenses back to multiple users. The high speed solid state drive cards are used for application scratch space . FusionIO SX300-6400

6.4TB is the only SSD card that meets the Government’s minimum requirements.

4. RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX 6 SERVER

The ASECC cluster currently runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 (RHEL6) (approved under Department of Navy Application and Database Management Systems (DADMS)

Operating System. For interoperability with existing cluster hardware and software, system compatibility, management, and for Information Assurance (IA) compliance with the

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guides

(STIGs) and with National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) requirements, the

RHEL6 must be installed on all new nodes included in this procurement. The RHEL6 is the only software license that meets the Government’s minimum requirements.

5. RED HAT SCALABLE FILE SYSTEM

With RHEL6 as the operating

, Red Hat requires this add-on to make all of the disk space available as one volume. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-on is the only file system add-on compatible with the RHEL6, thereby making it the only add-on that meets the Government’s minimum requirements.

6. NVIDIA K6000

The nVIDIA K6000 Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) are high density floating point co-processors for professional workstations.

The ASECC's existing application suite includes ABAQUS and LS-DYNA solvers, high usage applications, which require the nVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs, the parallel computing platform and application programing interface specific to nVIDIA GPUs for direct access to the GPU’s virtual instruction set and parallel computational elements for high speed data transfer and execution performance. In addition, the nVIDIA K6000 graphics card is still the same family of graphic cards and is required for this acquisition to allow for the high resolution rendering of the solid physics modeling. Benchmarks of nVIDIA K6000 versus graphics cards of comparable capacities in terms of compute units, display speed, memory size, and memory bandwidth show these cards falling short of the nVIDIA K6000 in 3D performance, rendering, single to double precision compute performance, core clock rate consistency, power consumption, and thermal-levels after prolonged operations. Therefore, other non-professional graphics cards cannot be substituted, as the images they render flicker, have dull edges, and are not suitable for the precision and accuracy required in the Navy.

Further, the nVIDIA K6000 graphics card has 12 GB GDDR4 GPU memory, a 384-bit interface, and can run 2880 Cuda Cores GPUs which is required to support the high memory requirements for this acquisition, as well as for software compatibility and compatibility to the existing assets in the ASECC lab.

Therefore, the nVIDIA K6000 graphics card is the only graphics card that meets the

Government’s minimum requirements.

7. MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10 PRO

The ASECC workstations are running the Microsoft Windows Operating

Systems. Microsoft Windows Operating System is required for compatibility with existing systems, management, and maintenance support. The Department of Defense (DoD) mandated that all Windows workstations must be running Microsoft Windows 10 by January

2017, to improve security posture, lower the cost of IT, and streamline infrastructure for the

DoD.

Therefore, the Microsoft Windows 10 Pro for the Analysis Workstation is the only Operating

System software that meets the Government’s minimum requirements.

8. ROXIO CREATOR

The analysis workstation, running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro, is specified with Blu-ray disc burners for archival, backup, and data transfer. The Roxio Creator NXT 4 is the only Navy approved disk burning software that is compatible with Blu-ray writable discs (approved under DADMS

Therefore, the Roxio Creator NXT 4 is the only disc burning software that meets the

Government’s minimum requirements.

RESELLERS:

As part of Code ’s initial market research, the aforementioned list was presented to several potential sources. This brand name requirement will be synopsized/solicited on the Federal

Business Opportunities (FEDBIZOPS) website and all authorized resellers of the specified brand name components will be considered for award.

Requiring Department:

Based on the above, I recommend this acquisition be conducted on a Brand Name Specification basis for the above identified components making up these specified configurations. I certify the technical data which form the basis of this justification are complete and accurate.

APPROVAL:

Branch Head:

Based on the above, I have determined that the circumstances of the contract action deem only those brand name specified components listed above as capable of meeting the Government’s requirements. I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.