Glasgow Sustainability
Dr Richard Sinnott
NeSC Review
27th May 2005
Sustainability?
Model for sustainability should include:
Sharing together
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Co-ordination of university-wide infrastructure
– Linkage to Computer Services/cross faculty IT personnel
Research together

E-Science should be cross faculty, ideally across ALL faculties!
– Needs university-wide involvement and support
Supporting each other

Funding should come from university-wide sources for central e-Science
facilities/expertise
– Needs university-wide “buy-in” acceptance
Regional focus

Need to help stimulate local/Scottish e-Research
Glasgow e-Science Infrastructure
Consolidating resources
Story started with building around ScotGrid

Providing shared Grid resource for wide
variety of scientists inside/outside Glasgow
– HEP, CS, BRC, EEE, …
» Target shares established
» Non-contributing groups encouraged
Hardware
•
59 IBM X Series 330 dual 1 GHz Pentium III with 2GB memory
•
2 IBM X Series 340 dual 1 GHz Pentium III with 2GB memory
•
3 IBM X Series 340 dual 1 GHz Pentium III with 2GB memory
and 100 + 1000 Mbit/s ethernet
•
1TB disk
•
LTO/Ultrium Tape Library
•
Cisco ethernet switches
New..
•
IBM X Series 370 PIII Xeon with 32 x 512 MB RAM
•
5TB FastT500 disk 70 x 73.4 GB IBM FC Hot-Swap HDD
•
eDIKT 28 IBM blades dual 2.4 GHz Xeon with 1.5GB memory
•
eDIKT 6 IBM X Series 335 dual 2.4 GHz Xeon with 1.5GB memory
•
CDF 10 Dell PowerEdge 2650 2.4 GHz Xeon with 1.5GB memory
•
CDF 7.5TB Raid disk
ScotGrid [ Disk ~15TB
CPU ~ 330 1GHz ]
Over 2 million CPU hours
completed (May 2005)
Over 230,000 jobs
completed
Includes time out for
major rebuilds
Typically running at ~90%
usage
Glasgow e-Science
Infrastructure Future Plans
But not enough…
Computer Services second HPC facility (128 processor)

Supports NGS stack
University SAN (50TB – 25TB mirrored across campus)

Up and running
– ~£850k investment
Access to campus wide resources

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Condor pools in NeSC, EEE, Physics and Astronomy,
Other clusters and larger SMP machines across campus
National Grid Service
Connection to UKLight network (up to 10Gb/s connectivity)
SBRN and other project equipment funds
… many other bids/equipment bids submitted (more later)
Glasgow has also agreed to invest £1M of SRIF-3 funds in upgrading
its e-Science computational infrastructure

procurement to start early August, ready for use February 2006
– We will become an NGS node!!!
Glasgow e-Science
Organisational Aspects
Essential to nurture relationships across university at ALL
levels
Social issues almost as important for Grid success as technical
issues
Steering
Committee
Management
Board
User
Groups
Technical
Board
Glasgow e-Science
People Plans
E-Science Business Plan accepted by Glasgow Senior
Management Group
Identifies
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Research Computing Director (new position being discussed)
– Relationship to vacant Computer Services/Information Services
director positions being discussed
E-Science applications co-ordinator
Underwriting of NeSC staff contracts
Underwriting existing Grid systems administrator positions
Future funds for NeSC running costs
To be funded through contributions from university wide eScience activities and university Strategic Investment Funds
University wide engagement and support of e-Science
Glasgow e-Science
Funding Plans
Email from Prof. Robin Leake (Vice Principal) sent to all
Deans of ALL faculties and Secretary of Court
Hopefully, we all recognise the need to have Glasgow University at the forefront of
eScience and the related Scottish Grid Service. Could you please remind all your
PIs that, even if they do not currently use any eScience facilities, it will be necessary
to include in grant applications a true charge for all eScience & Grid use. Once a
grant is awarded, this money must be transferred directly to the eScience Account.
As eScience becomes important in more & more areas of research, it is vital that we
keep our present level of activity as a minimum and are in a position to expand to
accommodate the ever-widening group of users. Please ask colleagues to discuss
with Richard Sinnott (our Director of eScience) if they are not sure of the correct level
of charges.

This funding pot now established and being filled up…
Glasgow e-Science
Funding Plans …ctd
Bids submitted since January 2005 to show constant stream of
funding – all driven by/involving NeSC…
ESRC – Grid Enabled Occupational Data Environment
BBSRC – Grid Enabled Microarray Experiment Profile Search
BBSRC – Grid-based Biomedical Visualisation Facility
BBSRC – CCP11 bid
BBSRC – Research Equipment Infrastructure bid
EPSRC - Tools to Support the Integrated Security of Grid Infrastructures
EU FW6 - Fostering Acceptance of Secure Access and Monitoring
Technology for Brain monitoring with information technology eInfrastructure (FastBrain)
EU FW6 - Fostering Acceptance of Secure Access and Monitoring
Technology for Brain monitoring with information technology eInfrastructure Services (FastBrains)
EU FW6 - Process Based Access Control
Bids in progress
Working on 5 bids to EPSRC including Usability and Security calls, …
Glasgow e-Science
Regional Efforts
Numerous talks and seminars on work of NeSC and research
opportunities across Scotland
Seminar at University of Stirling, March 2004
HPCInform event, Strathclyde University, September 2004
Systems Biology workshop, Edinburgh, March 2005
Glasgow e-Science: Past, Present and Future, April 2005
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(Talk given to 60+ distributed IT personnel from Glasgow University)
Several similar talks given to different faculties across Glasgow
Glasgow University newsletters
Bids accepted with Scottish collaborators
SBRN – Dundee led (with Edinburgh, Glasgow)
GHI – Dundee led (with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen)
GEODE – Stirling led
Bids in progress with Scottish collaborators
FedEx (Federated Extranets) - Glasgow Caledonian led
Scotland’s Integrated Clinical Research Facilities – Glasgow led (with
Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee)