[StBernard] 'Queen Bee' computer creates major buzz

[Westley Annis]

Periodically, the press office will publish editorials, articles and columns that feature Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's work in various areas. 

The Advocate: 'Queen Bee' computer creates major buzz
Published: June 12, 2007
Page 1 B
View the article online at http://www.2theadvocate.com <http://www.2theadvocate.com> 

By JORDAN BLUM
Advocate Capitol News Bureau 

Downtown Baton Rouge is now home to one of the world's 25 most powerful supercomputers, courtesy of a new "Queen Bee" in town, the Louisiana Board of Regents announced Monday.

The new computing infrastructure and its 50 teraflops of power is affectionately named after Gov. Kathleen Blanco. She embraced the "Queen Bee" nickname given to her not-so-affectionately by state Rep. Troy Hebert after he was stripped of a committee chairmanship in 2004.

Every teraflop is 1 trillion operations per second.

The new computer is nearly 10 times more powerful than any of the supercomputers operating on individual university campuses.

The cluster supercomputer is the "centerpiece" of the ambitious Louisiana Optical Network Initiative linking the state's higher education.

"This is a really big deal," said LSU's Charles McMahon, the LONI executive director, noting that Louisiana has joined the world's elite.

The official supercomputer "Top 500" list will be released June 27 at http://www.top500.org <http://www.top500.org> .

The current top 25 only includes one other U.S. university computing system, which runs through the University of Texas.

Queen Bee is housed in the state Information Services Building in the Capitol complex. The 680 computing nodes resemble rows of new gym lockers over about 1,300 square feet. The computer should begin running in late July, McMahon said.

The building is being renovated just to accommodate its power.

LONI is a fiber-optics network linking the state's universities through supercomputers initiated by a $40 million initial investment pushed by Blanco.

Queen Bee will be the hub of LONI and designed to rapidly improve research and economic development opportunities, McMahon said.

Queen Bee will play a crucial role in faster and more accurate research in sciences such as hurricane modeling and pinpoint pharmaceutical drug delivery, said Mike Abbiatti Regents associate commissioner for information and learning technology.

Carl Brandt, manager of LSU's computing networking, infrastructure and research, said LONI is the "greatest collaboration" between all the universities and state in more than three decades.

The five IBM LONI supercomputers are "LaCumba" at Southern University, "Bluedawg" at Louisiana Tech University, "Ducky" at Tulane University, "Neptune" at the University of New Orleans and "Zeke" at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

LSU recently shut down its "Super Mike" computer and will begin operating the 15-teraflop "Tezpur" supercomputer as soon as late July, McMahon said.

LSU also will soon connect its LONI-linked supercomputer, named "Eric," after deceased distinguished Professor Eric Voegelin, in a new tradition of naming computers after former professors

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