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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

Simon Hood

its-ri-team@manchester.ac.uk
Head of Research IT Infrastructure and Platforms,
IT Services, University of Manchester

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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News

Why don't you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don't you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don't you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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Interim RDA Platform

• Data Vault (JISC-developed platform)
• In soft launch — would you like to try it?
• Long-term RDA platforms will be decided by RLP (later).

RDS: Transition Funds from Fac BMH

• 290k into RDS to expedite migration of at-risk data on legacy/point storage (e.g., WMIC).
• Longer term: essential that storage is costed onto grants and auto-charged
  • POSF model should help.

Campus Network

• Major investment in campus network coming. . .

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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Always-on (aka backbone):

• 64 GB RAM: 16 * 8-core, 12 * 12-core, 4 * 16-core;
• 256 GB RAM: 8 * 16-core.

MS Windows Compute Resource:

256 GB nodes:

• split into Condor VM nodes (KVM)
• Some MS Windows nodes!
  • would you like to try it?

Future:

• Singularity? (Containers. . .)
• Bursting to Azure?

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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IT Services Do NOT Support Point Storage

A reminder:

• Use of point storage strongly discouraged!
• Central options: RDS, DataVault, DropBox, Mendeley. . .
• We will make all practicable efforts to help you to use our data storage services, for example, by considering cases for network upgrades and/or changes to our services.
• We will not help set up, support or maintain point storage solutions except where existing solutions cannot meet your requirements and cannot be adapted to meet them.
• Details available on line.

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Two into one does go!

• Main two on-site compute platforms: CSF2 and Hydra/DPSF
• Separate mainly for historical reasons

Merger: CSF2 + DPSF = CSF3

• Easier for users;
• support more efficient;
• cheaper to support.
• Approved by RITSCMB — ITGG on Dec 05;
• All done by Easter?

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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RDS needs a friendly frontend!

Evaluation of Nextcloud:

• Active fork of Owncloud;
• Nextcloud Web site.
• EVALUATION of friendly/functional user-interface to RDS to inform our RDS strategy.
• Would you like to try it?

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N.B. No guarantee Research IT will be offering this in six month's time — but nothing to stop you setting up your own on RVMS!

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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Who

• Out: Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield.
• In : Lancaster, Leeds, Manchester, York and (hosting only) Durham.

Options:

1. Hosting at Durham, join up with (STFC's) DiRAC.
2. Buy cycles from Hartree.

Likely: Hybrid

• Principal investment: a cluster hosted at Durham;
• secondary, cycles from Hartree
  • allows us to develop possible future expanded collaboration.

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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Academic Themes

• Five research themes.
• Cross-cutting technology themes.

Research IT Theme

• Singularity containers, Jupyter, N8-wide Condor, ...?
• Cross-N8 RSE market/pool?

Etc

• All eight institutions!
• Quarterly meetings.

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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At the risk of getting severely shouted at. . .

2FA (Duo) and On-site Compute Platforms:

• Email/VPN/2FA combo working now?
• Want to investigate 2FA/Duo and compute platforms. . .
  • not VPN/LI>
• Up first: Zrek
  • 2FA on SSH (tested, works fine)
  • What would this break? (Cron jobs using keys. . .)

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2017 Nov 29 Research IT Club

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Potential Multi-Million Pound Investement

Streams

• e-infrastructure (includes HPC, HTC and HPDA);
• RDM;
• Research Lifecycle (incl. business/admin platforms).

Consultancy phase

• Tenders out now — end around April 2018.
• Followed by detailed business cases development.
• And very significant investment — we hope!

Consultancy — from early next year (Feb?)

• Major academic/researcher input required — you!