ECDF
Edinburgh Compute
and Data Facility
How did we get here
Prof. Peter Clarke
School of Physics&Astronomy
Director of National e-Science Centre
2005: SRIF bid submitted to the College
supported by many of you
2006: Procurement process started
2006: Won by Clustervision/IBM
2007: Phase 1 installed
2008: Phase 2 installed
1500 cores = 3000 kSI2k = 12 TFlops
270 TBytes storage
10 Gbit/s network, connectable to Janet lightpaths
Equipment without support staff is useless
Management staff in IS (funded by IS)
Systems team (in IS, funded by eDIKT+IS)
Middleware team (in NeSC, funded by eDIKT+Physics)
Staff pump primed by eDIKT + IS + Physics for ~ 2.5 years
Use dominated by CSE
Users in CSE
CPU use in CSE
Availability
Usage (green) Ù Capacity (red)
Storage use
How is ECDF kept fit for purpose ?
Ethos from the start has been:
ECDF is owned by the users
=
If its not doing what the researchers want
then its not a useful service
=
Must be responsive
The systems/MW team are proactive & responsive
..but this only works if there are effective feedback mechanisms at
all levels…
Helpdesk
Tickets
Stakeholders meetings
PU (Principle User) feedback form
Survey
ORG (Oversight by Researchers Group)
- Nominations will be wanted from you soon
Sustainability(1)
Recurrent costs:
- Power ~ £100k p.a
- Staff ~ £350k p.a
(note: IS contribute ~£100k management)
Case has been presented to CSE Management to fund recurrent
costs from sustainability pot and/or bills to Schools.
Heads of School all reported very favourably
– this is only because the users said it was useful
Sustainability(2)
Refresh:
~ £500k p.a
It is impossible to recover (fEC) depreciation on a computer
consistently - Case accepted that fEC is broken in this domain
Not solved
- Research infrastructure fund ?
- Bid to sustainability pot in future years ?
Eddie your shipboard computer