October 2006
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ASCI Red Retired
ASCI Red was the first computer system to achieve more than 1 teraFLOP on the LINPACK benchmark, claiming the number one spot on the TOP500 list of major supercomputer systems in the world in June 1997. It was declared excess property and retired in July, 2006.
The disk subsystem was sanitized via physical destruction of the recording media, and the components of the system were designated scrap and physically rendered unusable. A ceremony in June marked the retirement/decommissioning the ninth anniversary of the commissioning of the system.
ASCI Red remained number one on this list until being bested by ASCI White at Lawrence Livermore in November 2000. Along the way, its performance on the benchmarks increased from the initial 1.068 teraFLOPs measured in June 1997 to 1.338 teraFLOPs in November 1997, to 2.1213 teraFLOPs in June 1999, and finally to 2.3796 teraFLOPs in November 1999. This run of seven consecutive #1 positions was unprecedented and has not been duplicated. In addition to being the first system toattain 1 teraFLOP, it was the first measured above 2 teraFLOPs, and, quite unexpectedly, would still have placed on the TOP500 list in November 2005 and June 2006 had it remained in service.
The system was in production use by Sandia, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and University Alliance partners until it was removed from service in October 2005 in a cost-reduction move for the program. Performance of major programs on ASCI Red was to be used as a benchmark for the required performance of its replacement, the Red Storm system developed in partnership with Cray. The Red Storm system was required to perform at least seven times faster than the ASCI Red system, a measurement that required many sets of tests to be run on ASCI Red during its last few months in service.
The room-sized system was incredibly stable during the last few years of service, a testament to the robust aspect of the architecture and the skill and dedication of the personnel charged with designing, developing, and operating this unique system. Intel developed the system in cooperation with Sandia and used a Sandia-developed light weight kernel operating system for the “compute nodes,” which contributed to the longevity of the system and its operating efficiency.
Following DOE/NNSA policy, the system was declared excess property in July 2006. The disk subsystem was sanitized via physical destruction of the recording media, and the components of the system were designated scrap and physically rendered unusable. A ceremony marking the retirement/decommissioning was held in June on the ninth anniversary of the commissioning of the system. Attendees at the ceremony signed a commemorative plaque containing a picture of the system. Arrangements have been made to send a cabinet to the Smithsonian Institution where it will join other significant computers on display. Additionally, Sandia is negotiating with the Computing History Museum in Mountain View, California, to have them add parts of ASCI Red to their collection.
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