Case Studies

Networking

­The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has been central to the defense of the United Kingdom for more than 50 years, providing and maintaining the warheads for the country’s nuclear deterrent. Uniquely among the nuclear powers, AWE covers the whole life cycle of nuclear warheads, in a single establishment. This includes initial concept and design, through component manufacture and assembly, to in-service support and, finally, decommissioning and disposal.

Since 1993 AWE has been managed on behalf of the Ministry of Defense under a goverment- owned/ contractor-operated arrangement. AWE hosts one of the largest and most advanced research and development centers in the United Kingdom, facilitating the design and production of Britain’s nuclear warheads. These warheads must have assured performance, but with the most stringent safeguards against unplanned operation.

Scientific and technical computing has always played a major role in AWE’s work, so when the organization needed to meet the switching demands of its Galaxy Cluster Supercomputer, comprised of 115 dual-CPU nodes running at 2.8 GHz and deliver a peak 64 bit performance of 5.6 Gflop/s, AWE looked to Extreme Networks.

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