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Access to HPC systems outside of Ireland

Overview

There will always be limits to the scale of HPC systems which are available locally to the research community. However in so far as possible this should not hinder the ambitions of researchers. A number of access programmes exist whereby Irish based researhers can gain access to very large scale HPC resources in the US and Europe. The systems in question represent some of the world's fastest machines.

To assist users in this area ICHEC is happy to discuss appropriate hardware and access programmes. On a number of such proposals ICHEC staff have acted as co-investigators, adding their HPC expierence to PI's scientific expertise to help create a multidisciplinary team which can effectively use such large scale resources.

It is ICHEC's policy to offer user support to its users when they are using external systems in much the same fashion as we do on our own systems, with obvious restrictions because ICHEC will not have administrative control of the systems. Liaising with the local administartion and support teams is a key part of this effort. A number of different access schemes are outlined below all of which ICHEC has experience of working with. If you have any questions do not hesitate to get in contact.


PRACE Production Access

PRACE the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe operates an access programme. Currently there are two systems available:

  • The IBM Blue Gene/P JUGENE based in FZJ, Jülich in Germany. This machine has a total of 294,912 cores. JUGENE has a peak performance of 1 Petaflop.
  • CURIE is based on x86 architecture CPUs with a mix of thin and fat nodes interconnected through a QDR Infiniband interconnect. It has a total of 92,160 processing cores with 4 GB/core and 360 TBytes in total. The peak performance of the fat nodes partition is 105 Teraflops and the total peak performance (thin nodes and fat nodes) is 1.6 Petaflops.

The most recent PRACE production call closed on January 11th. Further production calls will follow in due course. Full details of these calls can be found here: http://www.prace-ri.eu/Calls-for-Proposals. Irish based reseachers who interested in applying to future calls are strongly encouraged to contact ICHEC to discuss their application.

Note: as of November 2010 the IBM Blue Gene /P system at FZJ is the 9th fastest system in the world in terms of the Top 500.


PRACE Prototype Access

PRACE also operates a Prototype Access scheme. The aim of this scheme is to permit rapid access to modest levels of resources to aid porting and optimisationto JUGENE and CURIE. Preparatory access is intended for testing or development of computer codes for preparation for applications for PRACE project access. Standard production runs will not be allowed as part of preparatory access. For types B and C a detailed description of code bottlenecks is very important for the assessment.

Preparatory access calls are rolling calls. There are 3 types of preparatory access:

  • A) Code scalability testing to obtain scalability data which can be used as supporting information when responding to future PRACE project calls. This route provide an opportunity to ensure the scalability of the codes within the set of parameters to be used for PRACE project calls, and document this scalability. Assessment of applications is undertaken using a light-weight application procedure with application evaluated at least every 2 months. The maximum allocation for type A is 100,000 core hours on JUGENE and 50,000 core hours on CURIE. The maximum allocation time is 2 months which includes submission of the final report.
  • B) Code development and optimisation by the applicant using their own personnel resources (i.e. without PRACE support). Applicants will need to describe the planning for development in detail together with the expert resources that are available to execute the project. Applications will be assessed at least every 2 months. The maximum allocation is 250,000 core hours on JUGENE and 200,000 core hours on CURIE. The maximum allocation time is 6 months which includes submission of the final report.
  • C) Code development with support from experts from PRACE. Assessment of the applications received will be carried out at least every two months. The maximum allocation is 250,000 core hours on JUGENE and 200,000 core hours on CURIE. The maximum allocation time is 6 months which includes submission of the final report.

Details of some successful Irish applicationis can be found here. For more information on PRACE see http://www.prace-ri.eu and http://www.prace-ri.eu/IMG/pdf/prace_preparatory_access_call.pdf or contact us.


INCITE

INCITE is a US HPC access programme that is operated by the Department of Energy. It grants access to "leadership Computing Facilities" at both the Argonne and Oak Ridge National Labs.An annual call is made though applications can be for multi-year programmes. The 2011 call will allocate 1.6 billion compute hours. With the average award being in excess fo 20 million hours. This programme is open to applications from European researchers. More information can be found here.


Argonne Early Science Program

From time to time one-off programmes are run often corresponding to the commissioning of a new HPC system. The Argonne "Early Science Program" is one such programme it aims to get researchers using the next generation IBM Blue Gene being installed at Argonne National Lab in the US as early as possible. The system will be a 10 Petaflop machines with roughly 0.75 million cores. Roughly 2 billion compute hours were offered. While this call has now closed it was open to European researchers. More details can be found here.


DEISA Extreme Computing Initiative

DEISA the Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications has operated an access programme called DECI, DEISA Extreme Computing Initiative. It operated since 2005, however the most recent call is due to be the final DECI call. ICHEC was involved in a number of submissions to this call and is pleased that some were successful despite the call being oversubscribed to an unprecedented level.

This initiative operated as follows:

  • There was a call for proposals each spring, e.g. March 1st to May 4th in 2009.
  • Proposals were evaluated by National Evaluation Committees. Their recommendations were considered by the DEISA executive council and final decisions are made in December. DECI proposals from Ireland were considered together with proposals from the UK.
  • Decisions were based on potential for innovation scientific merit and the relevance of the DEISA infrastructure.
  • Access to resources was given in defined time periods between November and the following October.

For details of successful DECI applications see here. For more information see DEISA and DECI.

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