RI Update, 2014 Feb 01
We would be very happy to give a short presentation on recent developments, as outlined below, in your faculty, school or group, followed by a Q&A session. If you would like us pay you a visit, or you have any questions, please do email us at
Best wishes
Simon
Dr Simon Hood, IT Services Research Infrastructure Coordinator.
It’s about the service, not the hardware!
We look after an awful lot of clusters and associated infrastructure, but our role is to help researchers at the University get their computation and analysis done, not simply to provide hardware! We optimise and continually develop our systems and services in response to user requirements and suggestions; install applications and write documentation; help find better ways for researchers to do their work, and, of course, answer many queries!
After all, who better to help a researcher make use of a facility than those who designed, built and administer it?
If you think there is something that we could do better, or which is simply missing, do let us know.
A Quick, Visual Summary
If you want a quick, visual summary of what we can offer, please have a look at The UoM CIR Ecosystem (A2-sized PDF). Please feel free to print out a copy and/or redistribute it. (We can also send you a printed copy.)
The CSF — Computational Shared Facility (aka Danzek)
The CSF continues to grow — now at around 5300 CPU cores. 24 new compute nodes were commissioned in early January and 12 more are expected very soon. All of these have the latest Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs. Further contributions are already in the pipeline. For more information, please visit https://ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/csf.
Research Virtual Machine Service — Pilot
We are developing a virtual machine service for research groups on which researchers may have root/admin privileges, e.g., for Web servers. This service is in a pilot phase. If you are interested in a pilot VM, please contact us at the above address.
The iCSF — an INteractive Computational LINux Environment (aka Incline)
Our service for *interactive* computational work has been in production for a few months. It is aimed at those who need to use a GUI and also those doing code development who need to perform multiple short runs and code tweaks. For more information, please visit https://ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/icsf.
The zCSF — an Emerging Technology Cluster (aka Zrek)
Zrek brings together previously disparate systems each containing Xeon Phi cards, an FPGA or one of the newest Nvidia GPU cards, making it easier to share and promote the use of these emerging technologies.
The RDS — Research Data Storage Service (aka Isilon)
The RDS provides all home-directories and some other shared areas on The CSF, iCSF and now the zCSF, etc., so that users see the same files wherever they login. For more information please visit https://ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/rds.
The UoM Computationally-Intensive Research Ecosystem
All of the above are elements in the tightly-integrated UoM CIR Ecosystem. For
more information please visit https://ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/the-cir-ecosystem.