An Integrated Ecosystem

Ecosystem Integration

The components of the ecosystem are integrated to make using the systems with your data as easy as possible. Many research groups have access to multiple systems in the ecosystem, for example so that both batch and interactive computation can be used to process datasets, with all systems accessing the same storage.

Components of the UoM Campus CIR Ecosystem (Click for larger image.)

Common Storage

Each user has the same home-directory (hence sees the same files) on all computational facilities. Additional RDS-based shared areas (e.g., /mnt/group01-home01 on the CSF) are also available everywhere within the ecosystem.

Fast, Dedicated Networking

RDS storage, the CSF and iCSF are all linked by a dedicated, fast network – the Research Data Network (RDN).

Common Off-Campus Access — Virtual Desktop

All ecosystem computational facilities and storage are directly accessible from on campus only (for security reasons). The University VPN can be used for off-campus access. A virtual desktop is available for persistent sessions if moving between several locations.

Integrated Web Services and Other Virtual Machines

Increasingly, computational services are used through a Web-based front end; research output is also made available by the same means. By using the RVMS (see above), researchers are able to set up IT Services-hosted Web sites for both of these purposes.