EMPA hpc-ch Forum

Call for presentations and participants: hpc-ch Forum on infrastructure for HPC, May 24th, Empa

Dear members and guests of the hpc-ch community,

We are pleased to invite you to the upcoming hpc-ch forum on

Infrastructure for HPC

to be held on Thursday, May 24th, 2012 from 10:00 until 17:00, kindly hosted by Empa.

Here below you find a description of the forum and a few key questions as guideline for contributions. Additional information is published here »

To register send an e-mail to delorenzi (at) cscs.ch (registration only open to community members and guests).

Setting the Scope

In this forum we would like to discuss the different aspects related to providing an infrastructure for the HPC systems we are operating. In many institutions the factors limiting HPC are not the available personnel or monetary resources but simply the available resources where new systems are to be installed.

Providing an adequate technical infrastructure for HPC encompasses different fields such as overall architecture, electricity, cooling, security etc. This is made more difficult since in most cases it is not possible to build a new data center but we have to adapt our needs to existing buildings.

Key Questions

We would like to exchange our experiences in this field and discuss some of the following points:

  • What is the actual situation at our centers? Expressed in available square meters, maximal power usage, cooling technologies, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), etc.
  • What are our forecasts (3 to 8 years) in the increase of technology of HPC?
  • How will the infrastructure requirements for HPC systems grow in the next future? On what do we base our extrapolation? What will be the limiting factors?
  • What are today’s best practices and problems in running an infrastructure for HPC?
  • What are the trends in this field? What will our infrastructure look like in a decade?
  • What problems are often experienced, such as unreliable power, cooling infrastructure problems or polluted air?
  • Essential, unthought of needs, such as cable management, inventory management, configuration management, etc.

Location / Hosting

The Topic Forum will take place at Empa Akademie
Empa, Ueberlandstrasse 129, 8600 Duebendorf

Please refer to this link to get information about how to reach Empa »

Chairmanship

Daniele Passerone, Empa, tel 058 765 4877
Carlo Pignedoli, EMPA, tel 058 765 4203
Michele De Lorenzi, CSCS / hpc-ch, tel 091 610 82 08

Agenda (preliminary)

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee and registration
10:30 – 10:40 Greeting and introduction, Daniele Passerone (Empa) and Michele De Lorenzi (CSCS / hpc-ch)
10:40 – 12:00 Presentations
12:00 – 12:05 Community Development, Michele De Lorenzi
12:05 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 14:00 Guided tour at Empa
14:00 – 17:00 Presentations (with a short break at 15:30)
17:00 Farewell and end of the meeting