1. CoSeC: Computational Science Centre for Research Communities
Barbara Montanari
CoSeC Director & Acting Head of Applications Division
Scientific Computing Department
STFC

2. Partnerships in Research Software
CoSeC supports the advancement of research by:
developing software in multiple disciplines
providing a hub for exchanging knowledge through training and outreach
nurturing strong collaborations among researchers

3. CoSec: a New Partnership of Research Councils

4. One Centre, Two Sites
Daresbury Lab
Rutherford Appleton Lab

5. Community Support CCP4 HEC Biosim CCP5 HEC UKCP CCP9 HEC MCC CCPi
CCP-NC
CCP-mag
CCP Plasma
CCP-EM
CCP PET-MR
CCPQ
CCPBiosim
HEC Biosim
HEC UKCP
HEC MCC
HEC Plasma
HEC UKCOMES
Software
Outlook

6. What CoSeC People Do Train & support users Develop theories & methods
Science domain expertise
Develop theories & methods
Develop software
Software performance, optimization & porting
Data post-processing
Maintain, license & distribute software
Workflow & visualization
Validate & consolidate methods
Develop staff
Train &
support users
Build community

7. 1973: Dawn of the CCPs
“Primary aim is to bring together scientists to:
Provide for the rapid interchange of information on theory, algorithms, and computer codes
Collect, maintain and develop relevant items of software
Encourage basic research by providing facilities for rapid computer implementation of new methods and techniques
Assess and advice on associated computational needs
Disseminate information among scientists”
Computer Physics Communications 114 (1998) xii-xvii

8. Origin of UK Software Infrastructure
“To assist the CCPs, the Science Research Council will provide support as follows:
Support from staff from the Research Council’s Laboratories
Short term appointments of Senior Visiting Fellows
Longer term Research Assistantships
Funding for networking events”
Computer Physics Communications 114 (1998) xii-xvii

9. Origin of UK Software Infrastructure
“To assist the CCPs, the Science Research Council will provide support as follows:
Support from staff from the Research Council’s Laboratories
Short term appointments of Senior Visiting Fellows
Longer term Research Assistantships
Funding for networking events”
Computer Physics Communications 114 (1998) xii-xvii

13. The Past Modelling& simulation calculation Output data
analysis, visualisation & processing
Job
submission
Input
preparation
Biology
Engineering
Biochemistry
Medical
Science
Physical
Sciences

14. The Present Modelling& simulation calculation Output data
analysis, visualisation & processing
Job
submission
Input
preparation
Biology
Engineering
Biochemistry
Medical
Science
Physical
Sciences

15. Code Usage and User Training Metrics
Blue: total
Red: total/staff headcount

16. A Question of Balance
Across the ecosystem that is the UK software infrastructure, we need to balance time and resource spent on:
Shorter term “low hanging fruits”
Longer term, larger scale software development efforts
Nourishing and maintaining expertise

17. STFC: Home of the Large Experimental Facilities
ISIS Neutron Source
Diamond Light Source
Central Laser Facility
Common goal with RSEs: support research

18. Materials Workbench
K. Dymkowski et al.

19. Hartree Centre and CoSeC
Located at Daresbury Lab
Partnership with IBM, Atos, etc.
CoSeC expertise and codes are used for a number of computational science projects for Industry

20. Scientific Computing Department
CoSeC
Computational Science & Engineering
Data & systems div., computational maths, software engineering, visualization

21. Scientific Computing Department: Tier1 Centre for CERN

22. Scientific Computing Department: JASMIN
A world leading, unique hybrid of:
16PB high performance storage (~250GByte/s)
High-performance computing (~4,000 cores)
Non-blocking Networking (> 3Tbit/sec), and Optical Private Network WAN’s
Coupled with cloud hosting capabilities
JASMIN Holds >60% of Data used by the latest IPCC report on Climate change.
JASMIN = Joint Analysis System Meeting Infrastructure Needs. A “Super Data Cluster” not a “Super Computer”
Data movement and analysis. Funded by NERC for all of NERC sciences. Hosted at STFC RAL by the Research Infrastructure group of the SCD
Satellite data, weather data. Climate simulations from the biggest super computers (“Archer”, MetOffce “Monsoon”, DKRZ.)
Eg JASMIN Holds >60% of Data used by the latest IPCC report on Climate change.
Largest data set 600TB
Plus other environmental research eg Genetic data from bugs in the environment (Environmental Genomics)
16 PetaBytes useable (20PB raw) ~ 3,200,000 DVD’s = ~ 6km high tower of DVD’s or > 36,000 years of MP3
Two largest Panasas ‘realms’ in the world (109 and 125 shelves).
Largest single site Panasas customer in the world (251 shelves)
900TB useable (1.44PB raw) NetApp iSCSI/NFS for virtualisation + Dell Equallogic PS6210XS for high IOPS low latency iSCSI
4,000 CPU cores split dynamically between batch cluster and cloud/virtualisation (VMware vCloud Director and vCenter/vSphere)
39 Racks
>3 Tera bits per second bandwidth (~3500 DVD’s per minute). IO Capability of ~250GBytes/sec – Arguably in the top 10 in the world for IO performance.
“hyper” converged network infrastructure - 10GbE + MPI low latency (~10uS) + iSCSI over same network fabric. (ie No separate SAN or Infiniband)
Finalist for BCS UK industry Awards “Big Data Project of the Year” 2012 and 2014
Managed with 2FTE. Recruiting for a 3rd team member

23. Scientific Computing Department: Data Division
Integrated data management pipelines for data handling
From data acquisition to storage
A Catalogue of Experimental Data
Metadata as Middleware
Automated metadata capture
Providing access to the user
Integrated into Analysis frameworks
In daily production use at the large experimental facilities

24. CoSeC People & RSEs Research Councils job portal: www.topcareer.jobs
We share all your values:
Support, courage, community, diversity,….
We share many of your issues:
Bus factor, …
Some significant differences:
Type of contract, length of service
Research Councils job portal:

25. CoSeC People and RSEs Common goal: support research
Let’s continue to support each other and work together
Let’s lobby together at all levels for recognition of the importance of research software and the people who write it

26. Theme for the event: Joining Up the UK e-Infrastructure

27. Many thanks to: All the super talented CoSeC people
Our communities and steering bodies
RSE Chairs for allowing us to host the CoSeC launch here
CoSeC launch team:
Cathy Jones
Damian Jones
Marion O’Sullivan
Dominik Jochym
Andy Collins