HPC 2015-16 | Canada
researchers. It has made us much more nimble. Currently, Compute Canada supports
more than 2,700 research teams using its systems – that means more than 9,000 researchers, as well as their international and industrial partners, use its resources. With its regional partners – ACENET, Calcul Quebec, Compute Ontario, and WestGrid – each responsible for one large region across Canada, Compute Canada is leading the broad transformation of the country’s advanced research computing platform, replacing many older compute and storage systems with new facilities.
Refreshing the national high- performance computing platform As my colleague Dugan O’Neil, Compute Canada’s chief science officer, says, on the pure compute side, everyone is challenged by the scale that’s needed. In his view, we need to provide bigger and bigger systems. We want our scientists doing atmospheric modelling, or the modelling of stars or the ocean – which requires enormous compute power – to be competitive with the other people in the world who are doing similar work. Atmospheric simulations used to be performed using a 3D grid with cells 500 km by 500 km covering the surface of the earth. Now, simulations might be used with 5 km by 5 km grids. A rule of thumb is that a factor of two times improvement in resolution leads to roughly a 10-time increase in computing need. Compute Canada is responding to these demands by leading the largest refresh of
the national ARC platform in its history, dedicating roughly $75 million (Cdn) to the acquisition of three new general-purpose systems that will become operational in 2016, and a fourth, highly parallel system, to be commissioned in 2017. Tese new systems will be larger and more capable than the older systems they replace, and will provide operational cost savings and economies of scale. Tese systems are expected to increase Compute Canada’s computational capacity by more than 12 petaflops. Tey will be installed in four of the most sophisticated, purpose-
The early days: The birth of Compute Canada
Compute Canada, the national federation at the helm of this initiative, was originally created in 2007 as an unincorporated academic partnership. Its creation was in response to a need identified by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Canada’s research infrastructure funding organisation, to integrate the operations found in the original seven regional high-powered computing consortia. Over the past few years, Compute Canada has evolved from a disparate organisation with compute, storage and matching fund sources distributed across more than 30 institutions. It is now a well-structured federation, with Compute Canada providing national
leadership and coordination. Compute Canada works in partnership with the current four regional consortia mentioned above, and is accountable to its member research institutions across Canada.
Compute Canada’s member institutions own and house the technology in their data centres and employ most of its 200 experts, but these resources are managed and funded through Compute Canada, supported by operating dollars of just over $150 million (Cdn) for 2012-2017. These funds come from the CFI (more than $60 million) and from provinces and the institutions themselves. Compute Canada maintains a national
roadmap for technology and services, which drives its applications for funding from government, including a recent proposal to the CFI’s Cyberinfrastructure Initiative, which resulted in the $30 million award announced on July 30th (another $45 million will come from provincial governments and industry). Compute Canada will soon be applying for renewed operating funding for 2017-2022. In many countries, national ARC providers co-exist with a number of institutionally based providers of research computing – either for one institution or for local consortia of institutions. This was the genesis of Compute Canada but, uniquely,
Compute Canada has evolved to serve the needs of all Canadian researchers with needs ‘beyond the desktop’. The CFI, as Canada’s national funding agency focusing on research infrastructure, has encouraged all researchers with ARC needs to work with Compute Canada unless there are clear technical requirements that argue for a separate investment.
Compute Canada works alongside
CANARIE, Canada’s national advanced research and innovation network, Research Data Canada, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), campus IT organisations and other important players to provide coordination across the system.
built university data centres in Canada, and will support a range of national services that can be accessed by any Canadian researcher from any institution in any discipline, just by registering as a user with Compute Canada.
A commitment to on-campus support Despite the concentration of new investment in just a few locations, local support will remain a hallmark of Canada’s advanced research computing services at all of Compute Canada’s member institutions.
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