HPC DIRECTOR
Driven by science
Professor Marek Niezgódka, Director of the ICM Centre
those involved have a much tighter
grasp of intellectual property rights and
at the University of Warsaw, explains why the centre heads
so on, which puts us in a very different
the Green Top500 list and concentrates on open systems working environment for the more open,
collaborative approach we are used to in
academia.
We are committed to meeting those
O
ur facility is the national HPC requirements of the particular project, and challenges, though, as we would like to
resource for Poland, and we have of the value of the project in a national reach a point where around 50 per cent
two main functions: to provide an context. of our funding is independent of the
HPC resource for scientists, and also to From a hardware point of view, we government – and that means developing
research into computational science itself. are moving towards a hybrid set-up, suitable operational models for us to
We also store and provide access to all using adaptive computing in a mixed achieve this.
national scientific research content. environment. We were delighted to be We’re not too concerned about where
We strive to be truly interdisciplinary named at the top of the most recent Green we are on the Top500 list – or indeed if
and open-access in all we do. Our aim Top500 list, even though our position we are on there at all. Indeed, we believe
is to foster open models in all areas – there is a fortunate consequence rather that in many of the past 15 years we would
software, data, publishing, as well as open than a particular aim. have made it onto the list, but we have
information services such as weather
forecasting.
The work carried out here covers a
‘We can provide any research project an environment that
huge range of topics and applications.
breeds confidence and credibility. We have high security levels
In terms of modelling work, areas
include biosciences, nanoscience, the
and a commitment to top-rated aggregated performance’
environment, population modelling,
biomedicine, molecular medicine,
and atmospheric modelling. For large- The need for efficiency came about chosen not to apply for benchmarking.
scale data analysis, our strengths are in because we were short of space. Therefore, Admittedly, we would never have been at
biosciences, epidemiology and proteomics. we had to look at high-density solutions the top of the list, but our ranking would
The University of Warsaw is the largest that delivered efficiency and energy have been a by-product of the work we do
university in Poland, with more than savings. The fact that this drive to cut here, rather than an aim.
5,000 employees and 60,000 students. Our costs and improve efficiency has led us Instead, we prefer to concentrate on the
facility has around 150 staff, most of whom to the top of the Green list is a happy strengths that we have, such as the quality
are contract-based and linked to specific coincidence. of staff we have here. We can provide
ongoing projects. Wherever possible, we We are always looking to improve the any research project an environment that
try to remain independent and flexible so performance of our HPC set-up. Indeed, breeds confidence and credibility. We have
that project selection is easier. we have already applied for funding for a high security levels and a
We were founded by the Polish Ministry new wave of next generation architecture. commitment to top-rated
of Science and Higher Education, and In all cases, the performance levels we aggregated performance.
that’s where we get our funding. From seek are driven by the applications our All these qualities make
that funding, we issue around 200 grants a customers use and the types of research us proud of what we do
year for projects wanting to use the ICM that they do. For example, our next hurdle here.
centre. To date, most of these projects is to achieve competitiveness in systems www.icm.edu.pl/web/guest/main
have come from academia, but we are now biology, which has its own performance
in the process of setting up a new HPC lab challenges that we are now looking at
specifically for industry, commerce and the being able to overcome.
public sector. There are many day-to-day challenges
Applications for grants are accepted in what we do here, and our move to
all the time, and a decision is made based industry and commerce will only increase
on the visibility of the computational the number of challenges. For example,
www.scientific-computing.com SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING WORLD february/march 2009
37
SCWfeb09 pp37 director.indd 37 4/2/09 10:44:58
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44