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Second Freiburg HPC-Newsletter (Jan. 2014)

Our HPC-Newsletter, published by Freiburg’s IT-Services, aims at informing about HPC activities. It targets administrators, operators, and users of HPC infrastructures.

Freiburg, 28 January 2014

Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues!

We would like to use our second newsletter to wish all readers a belated happy and successful new year. We are looking forward to mapping the next months in the field of HPC in Freiburg’s IT Services together with you.

Feedback on our first HPC newsletter has been extremely positive and we would like to thank everyone for their input. A frequently expressed point was that our newsletter had previously only been available in German and was hence unable to reach the many English-speaking colleagues. Therefore, our second newsletter as all future newsletters will be translated into English.

We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter and are of course available for questions anytime!

Your HPC team at Freiburg’s IT-Services
Michael Janczyk, Dirk von Suchodoletz, and Janne Schulz

If you do not wish to receive our newsletter in the future, please contact us via e-mail or use the following form: http://www.bwhpc-c5.uni-freiburg.de/hpc-newsletter/abmeldung
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Overview:

"bw-projects"-series

Part 2: The bwGRiD as precursor to the bwForCluster and the bwUniCluster

In 2008 the bwGRiD-project started at eight universities in Baden-Württemberg. The core members were the universities in Mannheim, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Ulm/Konstanz, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Freiburg, as well as Esslingen University of Applied Sciences. The aim of the project was to make resources in the field of high performance computing efficiently available for researchers from all subject areas in Baden-Württemberg. Conceptually the bwGRid-project aimed at a decentralized grid structure in which homogenous parallel computer clusters are transparently linked and build a grid-compound. Users should not notice differences in terms of using the respective clusters, no matter whether they are logging onto the systems in Freiburg, Tübingen, Karlsruhe, or one of the other five locations. The environment and software would remain the same. Next to technical administration, the project team was therefore responsible for the development and implementation of adequate structures in order to reach these goals. The concept was designed to offer a stable and high-performance environment as well as to allow room for flexibility to test and develop new concepts (e.g. new hardware such as GPGPUs).

The bwGRID-project was complemented by a follow-up project “bwGRiD – Ergänzende Maßnahmen,” approved in mid 2011 and running for a period of two years. Within the scope of this project the already existing developments were improved on, extended, and intensified. Furthermore, other areas of focus that had been of interest to users (e.g. development of a state-wide available ticket-system on the basis of OTRS in HPC organization structure) received more attention.

The bwGRiD-project and the consecutive project “bwGRiD – Ergänzende Maßnahmen” have been highly successful, not only with regard to the publications calculated and published with the help of bwGRiD. Next to technical knowledge of the operation of parallel computer clusters at the respective locations, a distributed team has developed in constructive collaboration. This human component is crucial, especially for a distributed state-wide project, where coordination and trust of all participants is essential: Only if all processes behind the stage run smoothly, can users be offered an optimal service. This experience has directly influenced all concepts and accompanying projects, which aim at providing a smooth transition and development of HPC activities in Baden-Württemberg. This development will be visible in the step-by-step shutting down of the local bwGRiD clusters and the introduction of new resources, such as the bwUniCluster in Karslruhe (see Announcement 2).

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Location Freiburg

Status of bwForCluster application

As reported already in the previous HPC newsletter, the location in Freiburg has implemented areas of focus along the state-wide concept. This includes elementary particle physics, neuroscience, and microsystems engineering. The cluster is accordingly conceptualized to cater to the needs in these user groups. We have also reported that for the bwForCluster application all research groups in Baden-Württemberg were identified and asked to provide a description of their respective projects that will be calculated within the (new) cluster. These project descriptions are almost complete and show the intensive research activities throughout the state in the three focus areas. They will be detailed in the bwForCluster application in subject-specific chapters and they will also be “attached” to the application, in order to allow assessors to consult information on the individual projects in more detail.

As mentioned already in the previous newsletter: If you would like to receive updates on the process, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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Status of job advertisement for support- and coordination in bwHPC-C5 project

The bwHPC accompanying project bwHPC-C5 (more information on https://www.bwhpc-c5.de) allots a support- and coordination point for HPC expertise to all participating locations. This support- and coordination point will be the central point of contact for researchers. It will serve to collect inquiries, to direct them to appropriate contact persons, and to maintain contact and dialogue with research groups. This support- and coordination point is especially important at bwForCluster locations since these locations will be responsible for providing support in their field of expertise for researchers in all of Baden-Württemberg.

The job advertisement at the University of Freiburg ends in calendar week 4 (2014), and we are delighted to be able to announce that we have received several highly interesting applications, for which we have already arranged interviews. We hope to be able to fill the position as soon as possible and are very confident with this regard.

During the process of filling this position we are already constructing a website for the bwHPC-C5 project and as a central point for the three bwForCluster focus areas. It is worth visiting! (http://www.bwhpc-c5.uni-freiburg.de)

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Announcement 1: The bwGRiD location in Karlsruhe will be closed on 10 February 2014

Due to the launch of the bwUniCluster on 10 February 2014, the bwGrid location in Karlsruhe will be closed on 10 February 2014 after five years of operation. This date will mark the deactivation and disposal of the bwGRiD Cluster as well as the integration of the bwUnicluster in the field of high performance computing in Kalrsurhe. The directories $HOME and WORKSPACE will be accessible until 28 February 2014. Users are asked to remove all data and programs before this date.

Please be advised that data and programs will not be accessible after this date!

Users who have previously relied on the bwGRiD location in Karlsruhe can resort to the remaining bwGriD resources or the bwUniCluster! Freiburg’s bwGRid Team would like to use the occasion to thank our colleagues from bwGRiD in Karlsruhe for great collaboration. We are looking forward to the new computer systems, above all the impressive bwUniCluster!

Please contact us with any questions or concerns via our contact form or via e-mail. We are happy to help with moving to and accessing alternative cluster resources.

Link to online announcement: http://www.bwhpc-c5.uni-freiburg.de/news/bwgrid-karlsruhe-ausser-betrieb-ab-10-02-2014

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Announcement 2: The bwUniCluster in Karlsruhe has been in productive operation since 27 January 2014.

The bwGRiD Team in Freiburg is delighted to announce that the long awaited bwUniCluster in Karlsruhe will be in operation as of 27 January 2014. As of this date users in Baden-Württemberg will have access to an impressive and powerful parallel computer system with more than 500 nodes, equipped with 64-bit Xeon processors by Intel. Freiburg’s bwGRiD team wishes the Cluster in Karlsruhe all the best for the launching phase and is looking forward to close collaboration.

The bwUnicluster contains

  • 2 login nodes with 16 cores each, whose theoretical peak performance is at 332.8 GFLOPS and 64 GB main storage per node,
  • 512 “thin” computer nodes with 16 cores each, whose theoretical peak performance is at 332.8 GFLOPS and 64 GB main storage per node,
  • 8 “thick” computer nodes with 32 cores each, whose theoretical peak performance is at 614.4 GFLOPS and 1 TB main storage per node,
  • as well as a the following connecting network: InfiniBand 4X FDR Interconnect.

For further information and details regarding composition and technical data please consult the press release: http://www.scc.kit.edu/dienste/9237.php.

 

Access to the bwUniCluster will be organized as for bwGRiD in Freiburg via bwID and Shibboleth-based access technologies. This means that users will be able to access the resources via normal SSH-client programs. No additional installation and user certificates will be necessary.

Information material will be available at http://www.bwhpc-c5-uni-freiburg.de/bwunicluster. Users who are interested in using the bwUniCluster should contact Freiburg’s bwGRiD team (via e-mail or our contact form). We are more than happy to help with gaining access to and using the Cluster!

Link to online announcement: http://www.bwhpc-c5.uni-freiburg.de/news/bwunicluster-karlsruhe-startet-27-01-2014

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Dates

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Collected links

 

 

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