PRACE Experiences of an e-Infrastructure Flagship Project Thomas Eickerman – Jülich Supercomputing Centre

PRACE The Partnership for Advance Computing in Europe is the European HPC Research Infrastructure PRACE enables world-class science through large scale simulations PRACE provides HPC services on leading edge capability systems on a diverse set of architectures PRACE operates up to six Tier-0 systems as a single entity including user and application support International non-for-profit Association with seat in Brussels; 20 members Systems funded by hosting members with 100 Million € / 5 years each Currently France, Germany, Italy, Spain; The Netherlands expected soon PRACE offers its resources through a single pan-European peer review process Governed by an independent Scientific Steering Committee

HET: The Scientific Case Weather, Climatology, Earth Science degree of warming, scenarios for our future climate. understand and predict ocean properties and variations weather and flood events Astrophysics, Elementary particle physics, Plasma physics systems, structures which span a large range of different length and time scales quantum field theories like QCD, ITER Material Science, Chemistry, Nanoscience understanding complex materials, complex chemistry, nanoscience the determination of electronic and transport properties Life Science system biology, chromatin dynamics, large scale protein dynamics, protein association and aggregation, supramolecular systems, medicine Engineering complex helicopter simulation, biomedical flows, gas turbines and internal combustion engines, forest fires, green aircraft, virtual power plant

HPC on ESFRI Roadmap 2006 HET “The Scientific Case for a European Super Computing Infrastructure” created by leading computational scientists from 5 key areas of computational science PRACE as a horizontal RI has no own community that “fights” for it: Proven need and support by several communities was instrumental getting political support Scientific Steering Committee User communities need a prominent role in the RI governance to maintain their support 4

PRACE Implementation Phase (1IP, 2IP) PRACE Timeline HPCEUR HET PRACE Preparatory PRACE MoU 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 EU-Grant: INFSO-RI-211528, 10 Mio. € PRACE Operation Phase PRACE Implementation Phase (1IP, 2IP) 23.4. 2010 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 June 9th, 2010 1st Council PRACE (AISBL), a legal entity with seat in Brussels

Status and Achievements – Impact so far (1/2) PRACE RI established as an international non-profit association (AISBL) in Brussels on April 23, 2010 20 member states (and associated countries) involved 400 Mio € from France, Germany Italy, Spain for 2010-2014 70+ Mio € from EC for preparatory + implementation phase projects Challenges and approaches taken Increase level of commitment of member states along with progress of preparations: MoU  LoC  Mandate for partners to accede to association and sign funding agreements Stepwise approach to integration: Starting with coordinated national procurements A possible future transition to joint procurements would require additional incentives for the national funding agencies (e.g. a significant EC contribution to the TCO) 6

Status and Achievements – Impact so far (2.2) PRACE RI is operational and ramping up rapidly First Tier-0 system operational: BlueGene / P in GCS@Juelich – the fastest Supercomputer in Europe 2 calls for project proposals managed (in June and August) 65 + 59 proposals asking for 1.472 + 2.874 Mio core hours 328 + 363 Mio core hours granted to 10 + 9 projects Principal investigators from 8 (5 / 5) countries 2nd regular call published on Nov. 1st – 6 monthly calls will follow 2nd Tier-0 system announced: 1.6 PFlops Bull Cluster in France, owned by GENCI, operated by CEA User support mainly funded through FP7 project PRACE-1IP 7

Impact Assessment Main objective is providing high-end HPC services to European Science and Engineering communities Amount of resources granted, # projects granted, # countries, # companies, # relevant codes enabled, … Results produced by the grants, e.g. number and impact of publications, … Participation in PRACE Training events Foster European HPC industry STRATOS is an interest group where technology providers exchange ideas and information and breed joint activities # and volume of joint projects stimulated (e.g. in FP7 Exascale call) ? External input and advice is welcome PRACE SSC, ERINA+, e-Infrastructures Observatory 8

High-End HPC Resources granted Year TFlop/s hours granted Provider 2005 6 DEISA 2006 2007 15 2008 24 2009 30 2010 201 PRACE 9

The growing PRACE family PRACE-1IP Kick-off meeting in Garching

Backup slide: The ESFRI Vision for a European HPC service European HPC-facilities at the top of an HPC provisioning pyramid Tier-0: 3-6 European Centres for Petaflop Tier-1: National Centres Tier-2: Regional/University Centres Creation of a European HPC ecosystem Scientific and industrial user communities HPC service providers on all tiers Grid Infrastructures The European HPC hard- and software industry PRACE Tier-0 DEISA/PRACE capability Tier-1 Tier-2 # of systems 11 11