CSU HPC (High-Performance Computing) Study Ricky Yu–Kwong Kwok Co-Chair, Research Advisory Committee ISTeC November 10, 2008 Presented to ISTeC IAC

2 Outline 1. Motivation for the Study 2. Interpretations of Findings 3. Summary of Findings 4. HPC Forum (9/3/2008)

3 Motivation for the Study HPC is a 3 rd way of conducting research and discovery To assess current activities and future opportunities To look at current systems at CSU To make CSU more competitive in the research arena Study Motivation

4 Summary of Findings [1] 37 responses  26 departments, 31 research areas HPC is “hot” at CSU! 1/3 of users have no immediate access to HPC resources  rely on other departments within CSU OR other organizations outside CSU  may be subject to strict resource restrictions Interpretations of Findings

5 Summary of Findings [2] Scattered resources Majority of users pessimistic about their HPC needs being met in future Advanced visualization needs require enhancement Need to “advertise” GRAD 510/511 courses Space limitations for HPC hardware??? Consultancy? Affinity groups? Interpretations of Findings

6 HPC Open Forum (9/3/2008) Agenda: 1. Introduction and ISTeC Overview: HJ 2. Background on CSU’s HPC History and Activities: Pat Burns 3. Findings from ISTeC’s HPC Survey: Ricky 4. Advanced Networking Capabilities at CSU: Scott Baily, Director of ACNS 5. Educational Activities in HPC: Sanjay Rajopadhye and Wim Bohm (Computer Science) 6. Plan for an ISTeC Visualization Facility: HJ 7. NERSC and the INCITE Program as a Viable Alternative: Josh Ladd (Mathematics) 8. Open Discussion – Faculty Needs and Directions Attendance: >50 colleagues from more than 18 departments/units on campus HPC Open Forum

7 Summary of HPC Forum Recommendations 1. Lack of HPC resources on campus impairing competitiveness 2. A large centralized computing facility with consultancy support would be nice 3. A campus scale system, instead of “big iron”, would be more suitable for CSU Possibly implemented by linking up existing machines Incentives for sharing have to be provided top-down 4. Over-provisioning of resources to individual researcher is needed to cater for uncertainties in usage 5. Synergies could be derived by pairing up “science” students with IS&T students in joint projects 6. Using NERSC could be a good interim solution to enhance HPC 7. ISTeC could play an important role in enabling interdisciplinary collaborations by providing “social networking” (physically and in cyberspace) for different researchers Recommendations from HPC Open Forum

8 Summary of Proposed Measures to Enhance HPC ISTeC Director (HJ), CSU VP-IT, and Ricky met with VP-R (Farland) on 11/6/2008 to come up with the following measures: Hardware: 1. Encourage CSU people to use NERSC 2. Submit a campus wide bid to NSF for tier-3 funding to acquire a large scale HPC platform 3. Consider building a centralized HPC facility: Seeded by CSU central, possibly with donations from companies such as AMD, HP, Sun Scale the system up incrementally, possibly with startup package funds from VP-R Software: 1. Identify pro-actively HPC “users” that are in need of help 2. Organize workshops and “crash-courses” for such users, as pre-requisites for GRAD 510/511 Summary of Proposed Measures