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Supercomputer Experts met at the First European Workshop on HPC Centre Infrastructures
The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre – CSCS in collaboration with CEA of France and BAdW-LRZ of Germany organized the first European workshop on HPC infrastructures on 2–4 September 2009, in Origlio, Switzerland. This event brought together for the first time experts in construction and operation of supercomputing facilities from Europe and around the world, including members of the PRACE project.
Infrastructure managers of High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities around the world are increasingly facing challenges in accommodating the requirements of current and future generations of supercomputer architectures. Power consumption and energy density push infrastructures, cooling technologies and operational budgets to the limit. Due to this development, building infrastructures have become a strategic asset of supercomputing centres.
The goal of the first European HPC Infrastructure Workshop was to initiate an exchange of knowledge and experiences in this area. 55 experts came together to discuss topics such as building design, facility management and operation, energy efficiency, cooling technologies and computer cooling designs. Speakers from APC, ASHRAE, Bull, CEA, Cray, CSCS, EYP, Green Grid, IBM, Intel, NCSA, RZ Integral, SGI, SUN, the University of Illinois and the Uptime Institute shaped this event with presentations of high technical quality. Participants also had plenty of opportunities to network and exchange ideas and information.
Based on the success of the workshop and the interest demonstrated by the attendees, a second European Workshop on HPC Infrastructures will be hosted next year by CEA in France.
About CSCS: The Centro Svizzero di Calcolo Scientifico (CSCS) located in Manno, near Lugano, is the Swiss National supercomputing centre. It has about 40 employees of which 15 are scientists. CSCS collaborates with the two Swiss Institutes of Technology, in Zurich and Lausanne, all Swiss universities, CERN, MeteoSuisse, ands other research institutions in Switzerland and abroad. CSCS is an autonomous institution of the Swiss Institute of Technology of Zurich.
About CEA: The French nuclear energy authority, or Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) is a major player in research, development and innovation, and a contributor to three key sectors: energy, information and healthcare technologies, and defense and security. CEA is deeply involved in High Performance Computing, operating a large supercomputing complex at Bruyères-le-Châtel near Paris for defence, research and also industry end users. This centre is candidate to hosting a PRACE petascale supercomputer, in coordination with GENCI which represents France in this European project.
About BAdw-LRZ: The Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (BADW-LRZ) provides general IT services to the scientific and academic communities in Munich and Bavaria, the powerful communication infrastructure Munich Scientific Network, and is a technical and scientific high performance Supercomputing Centre for all German universities. It is Member of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS), the alliance of the three German national supercomputing centres, which provide the most powerful high-performance computing infrastructure in Europe.
About PRACE: The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe prepares the creation of a persistent pan-European HPC service, consisting of several tier-0 centres providing European researchers with access to capability computers and forming the top level of the European HPC ecosystem. PRACE is a project funded in part by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme.
