HPCx

Here is the HPCx service Web site. Please note that the HPCx service ended on 31/1/2010.

HPCx on the UK Grid

As part of its e-Science Programme, the UK is deploying a computational Grid for use by researchers and their collaborators. In a recent article, Ian Foster of the Argonne National Laboratory, USA examines the question What is the Grid?. Further information about e-Science activities in the UK can be found from the National e-Science Centre in Edinburgh or from the UK Grid Support Centre at CCLRC. HPCx and the UK Grid

The role of the Grid Support Centre is to facilitate deployment of a Grid infrastructure in the UK. This involves resources at the Regional e-Science Centres, the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories and their partners, such as sites in the White Rose Grid. For more information see http://www.grid-support.ac.uk. HPCx is now Grid enabled!

The UK e-Science Grid currently uses the Globus GT2 middleware toolkit, pre-installed applications and local user and resource management and accounting systems. Grid users will require to be authenticated and to have a valid UK e-Science certificate. If you do not already have one, a certificate can be obtained via the on-line Certification Authority pages http://ca.grid-support.ac.uk..

Once you have a certificate you will need to install it on your home system as directed. You then need to request that the distinguished name (DN) string is installed in the grid-mapfile on HPCx. You make this request through the HPCx administrative web-site https://www.hpcx.ac.uk A DN, which is in the usercert.pem file, is of the form:

/C=UK/O=eScience/OU=Your University/L=Your Department/CN=your name

Jobs can be submitted from another Globus-enabled host just using a simple command of the form:

globus-job-submit login.hpcx.ac.uk:2119/jobmanager-loadleveler

• -np 4 -maxtime 2 -project e15 /bin/date

The above example being for a 4 processor parallel job.

Access to Grid facilities will however typically be via client software, such as GUIs, Web portals (see for instance the CCLRC IeSE project) and Globus-enabled applications. Staff at Daresbury can help you choose how to access the resources.

Reality Grid and HPCx

A high-profile project called TeraGyroid is running as part of the EPSRC-funded RealityGrid project, see the RealityGrid website. To enable this project to proceed we have compiled and installed a 64-bit instantiation of Globus GT2.4.3. Information about TeraGyroid test sessions are posted on the main HPCx Web site under MOTD.

This work was presented at the international SuperComputing 2003 conference, with live Access Grid presentations at the distributed SCGlobal event on 20th November at 10:30-12:00 local time (MST). See http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2003/global.html#sched under "Application Steering in a Collaborative Environment". Also see the EPSRC Press Release.

The main session is part of the HPC Challenge technical programme. See http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2003/tech_hpc.php. This is being presented at 18:30 GMT on 19th November. These sessions are also being streamed to the Web.

Press releases

8/11/2006 IBM Press Release: UK Science extends to new fields of research with HPCx IBM announces third and final phase of UK National Academic Supercomputer HPCx complete.

20/9/2005 HPC-UK Ltd Press Release: New consortium aims to give the UK a world lead in research using High-Performance Computing. The new consortium links CCLRC and Edinburgh and Manchester Universities.

19/7/02 EPSRC Press Release: UK Researchers and IBM to push back frontiers of science and engineering with biggest and fastest academic computer in Europe. UK Researchers and IBM to push back frontiers of science and engineering with biggest and fastest academic computer in Europe.

25/7/02 http://www.hpcx.ac.uk/about/hpcx/HPC_excellence.html">EPCC Press Release: Edinburgh leads in new approach to research.The University of Edinburgh is becoming Europe's leading centre in the emerging field of computational research, with facilities comparable to the best in the United States.

15/7/02 CCLRC Press Release: New £53 million high performance computing service to be located at the CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory. One of the world's most advanced high performance computing centres is to be built at the CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire.

UoE HPCX Ltd

The provider of the HPCx service is UoE HPCX Ltd, a company incorporated in Scotland (registered number: SC226350). Its registered office is at:

UoE HPCX Ltd, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL