1. Easy Deployment of the WRF Model on Heterogeneous PC Systems Braden Ward and Shing Yoh Union, New Jersey

3. Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) Features 2.4 Linux Kernel Available online http://bccd.cs.uni.edu/http://bccd.cs.uni.edu/ Networked file system used for data storage Setup time of 1-2 minutes per PC OS and file system completely undisturbed upon restart

4. Using the BCCD

5. 3 Groups of PCs Used 448 MHz Pentium 3 desktops with 256 MB of memory (networked 100 Mbps switches) 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 desktops with 2.0 GB of memory (networked 100 Mbps switches) 16 node Linux cluster: 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 processors, 1.0 GB of memory each, linked with 1 Gbps switches

6. Supercell Ideal Case em_quarter_ss in WRF distribution 2 hours forecast Grid resolution of 2 km (100 x 100 x 40)

7. Supercell Ideal Case Runtime (minutes) Number of Processors

8. Real case 12 hour forecast, beginning 00UTC February 11 th, 2006 Grid resolution of 15km (100x100x31 grid points) Initial and boundary conditions generated from 00Z NAM run from NCEP using WRFSI

9. Real Case Runtime (Minutes) Number of Processors

10. Supercell Ideal Case Runtime (minutes) Number of Processors

11. Real Case Runtime (Minutes) Number of Processors

12. Results A Linux cluster is easily created using PCs with BCCD Real case runtimes decreased 2-4 times on clusters of 4-8 PCs Useful for students and operational forecasters with limited or dated resources to run a locally configured WRF Model

13. Acknowledgment Dr. George Chang from the Computer Science Department and Computational Science Group at Kean University for building the Linux Cluster and providing technical support. Dr. Paul Gray of the University of Northern Iowa for developing the BCCD and making the software freely available. The project is supported by the Kean University Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and the Department of Geology of Meteorology.