Skip to main content
Gateway Launch
Remote Desktop Launch

Link to section 'Overview of Bell' of 'Overview of Bell' Overview of Bell

Bell is a Community Cluster optimized for communities running traditional, tightly-coupled science and engineering applications. Bell was built through a partnership with Dell and AMD over the summer of 2020. Bell consists of Dell compute nodes with two 64-core AMD Epyc 7662 "Rome" processors (128 cores per node) and 256 GB of memory. All nodes have 100 Gbps HDR Infiniband interconnect and a 6-year warranty.

Bell access is offered on the basis of each 64-core Rome processor, or a half-node share. To purchase access to Bell today, go to the Cluster Access Purchase page. Please subscribe to our Community Cluster Program Mailing List to stay informed on the latest purchasing developments or contact us via email at rcac-cluster-purchase@lists.purdue.edu if you have any questions.

Link to section 'Bell Namesake' of 'Overview of Bell' Bell Namesake

Bell is named in honor of Clara Bell Sessions, minority advocate and Professor and Director of Continuing Education of Nursing. More information about her life and impact on Purdue is available in a Biography of Bell.

Link to section 'Bell Specifications' of 'Overview of Bell' Bell Specifications

All Bell compute nodes have 128 processor cores and 100 Gbps Infiniband interconnects.

Bell Front-Ends
Front-Ends Number of Nodes Processors per Node Cores per Node Memory per Node Retires in
  8 One Rome CPU @ 2.0GHz 32 512 GB 2026
Bell Sub-Clusters
Sub-Cluster Number of Nodes Processors per Node Cores per Node Memory per Node Retires in
A 448 Two Rome CPUs @ 2.0GHz 128 256 GB 2026
B 8 Two Rome CPUs @ 2.0GHz 128 1 TB 2026
G 4 Two Rome CPUs @ 2.0GHz,
two MI50 AMD GPUs (32GB)
128 256 GB 2026
G 1 Two Cascade Lake CPUs @ 2.90 GHz,
six MI50 AMD GPUs (32GB)
48 384 GB 2026

Bell nodes run CentOS 7 and use Slurm (Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management) as the batch scheduler for resource and job management. The application of operating system patches occurs as security needs dictate. All nodes allow for unlimited stack usage, as well as unlimited core dump size (though disk space and server quotas may still be a limiting factor).

On Bell, the following set of compiler and message-passing library for parallel code are recommended:

  • GCC 9.3.0
  • OpenMPI

This compiler and these libraries are loaded by default. To load the recommended set again:

$ module load rcac

To verify what you loaded:

$ module list

Link to section 'Software catalog' of 'Overview of Bell' Software catalog