Dr Arthur TrewEPCC Director
[email protected]+44 131 650 5025
A Research Computing Infrastructure for Edinburgh
who are we building this for?
• local researchers, eg.– Computational: UoE HPC service, BlueGene/L, BlueDwarf …– Data: ScotGrid, QCDGrid, eDIKT, …
• national research consortia– Computational: QCDOC, HPCx, DEISA– Data: NDCC
• visitors– Computational: HPC-Europa visitor programme– Data: eSI
• … new projects/bids– HECToR, Brain Imaging, systems biology …– next generation machine design …
what’s the problem?
• we thought it was networking and CPU
• … but, a survey of users added data … BIG TIME!
• ... and this projection only included projects with secured
funding
0
20
40
60
80
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2001 2002 2003 20042000 2001 2002 2003
150
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TB
in summary
• while individual needs varied all required some mixture of– more CPU/memory– more data storage– faster access
• researchers were used to buying their own CPU servers
• so, our strategy was to complement this by providing a
support infrastructure
• Stage 1: we used £1.68 M of SRIF1 to:– create a fast, research network in parallel with edlan– install a research data storage facility
SRIF KB
SRIF AT
The last mile: SRIF1
JANET BAR
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
Library
Appleton Tower
Kings Buildings
Holyrood
Robson Building
EaStMan Router
Old CollegeWestern
General
Pollock Halls
New College
RESNET
Sick Children’sHospital
Medical School
Little France
BUSH
2Mbit/s
100Mbit/s
1000Mbit/s
… and data too
• 155 TB SAN + 36 TB tape backup– available to all e-science researchers
• total investment SRIF1 + project funds: £2.2M
short of space
• … but all the new facilities could not be fitted in the JCMB
machine room
• £4.2M from SRIF2 to refurbish a new research computing
facility
SRIF KB
SRIF AT
SRIF KB
SRIF AT
ACF
10 Gb/s
10 Gb/s
The last mile … Phase 2
JANET BAR
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
Library
Appleton Tower
Kings Buildings
Holyrood
Robson Building
EaStMan Router
Old CollegeWestern
General
Pollock Halls
New College
RESNET
Sick Children’sHospital
Medical School
Little France
BUSH
2Mbit/s
100Mbit/s
1000Mbit/s
the research SAN
KB
AT
SRIF/SJ4
Fibrechannel10 Gb/s
HPCx
iSCSI
NAS
QCDOC BG/L
SAN
what facilities are available to me?
• CPU– UoE HPC service (lomond) – 52-pe Sun E15000– BlueGene/L (bluesky) – 2,000-pe IBM R&D machine
– capability computing for the initiated
• data– research SAN – 155TB (disk), 36TB (tape) Sun 6290
• networking– SRIF network
• secure machine room space
• … email me with your needs and we’ll see what we can do
• other facilities by arrangement with project owners– BlueDwarf, ScotGrid,
a free lunch?
• the ACF is a strategic University facility– and hence open to all researchers
• although a real capital asset, the recurrent support for– facilities management– maintenance, power, space charges …– and, perhaps, user support and applications porting/tuning
• … has to come from project funds
• what is it you want/need?
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