MACI1

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MACI-1
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MACI-2
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Outstanding Research

• Long-term weather patterns
• Space weather
• Catalytic converter design
• Chemical catalysts
• Analysis of the human genome
• Discovering sub-atomic particles
• Immersive virtual meetings

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The Challenge

• Many research teams with diverse needs
• computer science, chemistry, earth and ocean
  science, engineering, life sciences, mathematics,
  physics, visualization remote collaboration,
  ...
• Capacity vs Capability computing
• Rapidly changing environment
• Growing changing demand
• Changing HPC Solutions
• Need for enhanced collaboration tools
• Individual institutions cant meet these needs

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The WestGrid Solution

• Working together 8 institutions, 2 provinces,
  250 faculty researchers
• Institutional commitments cash, infra-structure
  and support staff
• Contributions by industry
• Complementary and cost-effective resources
• Build on a track record of sharing, resource
  utilization and project management

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WestGrid

• Alberta
• University of Alberta
• University of Calgary
• University of Lethbridge
• Banff Center
• Shared high performance computing resources,
  large data management facilities, and
  visualization infrastructure

• British Columbia
• University of British Columbia
• Simon Fraser University
• TRIUMF
• NewMIC

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The WestGrid Team

• Co-PIs
• Jonathan Borwein (SFU)
• Gren Patey (UBC)
• Jonathan Schaeffer (UA)
• Brian Unger (UC)
• Mike Vetterli (TRIUMF)

• Key Contributors
• Kelly Booth (UBC)
• Rob Ballantyne (SFU)
• Matt Choptuik (UBC)
• Ken Hewitt (Netera)
• Richard Marchand (UA)
• Seamus OShea (UL)
• Rob Simmonds (UofC)

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WestGrid The Vision
Scientific Visualization
Computational Resources
Advanced Collaboration
Grid Storage
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Computation Solution

• UofA Large shared-memory computer (256
  processors?)
• UofC Clump of smaller shared-memory computers
  (64 4-processor machines?)
• UBC/TRIUMF Cluster of commodity computers (1,500
  PCs?)

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Data Solution

• We anticipate a dramatic growth in the amount of
  storage needed
• UofA/UofC 5 TB local file systems
• UBC/TRIUMF 10 TB disk and 25 TB tape
• SFU 25 TB disk and 100 TB tape

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Visualization Solution

• Add facilities for researchers to interpret their
  computational data
• Collaborative Environments
• GridRooms
• GridStations
• Collaboration and visualization research projects

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Dollars and Sense

• Total project cost is 40,000,000
• CFI 14,000,000
• Provinces 14,000,000
• Industry 12,000,000
• Over three two years
• Waiting for provincial matching funds

12,000,000 --------------------
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Grid Infrastructure

• Uniform access to resources
• single sign-on
• common submission interface
• global scheduling
• system wide accounting
• global shared file-system
• support for grid applications application
  portals

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Grid Reality

• WestGrid grid on hold until all funds secured
• Local expertise with Globus and Legion
• and other grid packages?
• Searching for a CTO to bring these disjoint
  efforts together (see www.westgrid.ca)

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Trellis Project Metacomputing Software
Great hardware. But, what about software?
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Overlay Metacomputers
MyGrid
Departmental Cluster
WestGrid
The challenges Different schedulers, different
file systems, different sys admins
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Placeholder Scheduling
U of A SGI
Metaqueue
PBSPro
Departmental Cluster
U of C Cluster
PBS
Sun Grid Engine
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Trellis File System
U of A SGI
Metaqueue
Job
Job
Departmental Cluster
U of C Cluster
Remote Data Access
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WestGrid Summary

• Outstanding researchers and research
• Unique regional facility with grid infrastructure
• Cost-effective shared facilities
• Comprehensive, diversified, and adaptable
• Demonstrating real sharing across the grid will
  be a major challenge