Møte med Fagrådet for

e-infrastrukturKundemøte UiO

25.april 2017

About UNINETT Sigma2

Established in December 2014 based on a decision from the 4 oldest universities and the Research Council of Norway

A long-term model with 5+5 years and evaluation of the company after 5 years. (i.e. minimum 10 year lifetime for the company)

Part of the UNINETT corporation, separate company

Collaboration agreement with the 4 oldest universities incl. 50 MNOK yearly funding

Contract with the Norwegian Research Council incl. 25 MNOK yearly funding

Granted infrastructure funding (75.7 MNOK investment 2016-2017) from the Norwegian Research Council

Operation and support contract with the 4 oldest universities

Frame agreement with the universities for project work

2

The Metacenter

National coordination and shared, consolidated resources have cost and efficiency advantages but creates a “distance” to the end-users (researchers)

This is avoided by keeping the support staff and competence near where the research is going on, at the universities

Combined with a data-centric architecture for the e-infrastructure, this model combines the advantages of the centralized model and the local model

3

Sigma2 METACENTER

AUS IT.dep

NTNU

Researchers

RFK

(RAC)

IT.dep

UiB

IT.dep

UiO

IT.dep

UiT

Sak 4

xx.april 2017

Strategi for Sigma2

Innspill til

strategiarbeid..

xx.april 2017

Bakgrunn for strategiarbeid

Sigma2 styret sin egen prosess

Arbeidsgruppen for IKT-strategi og helhetlige løsninger

Organiseringsprosjekt i KD

7

Føringer frå styret så langt

Dagens overordna mål ligg fast

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Procure, operate and develop a critical national infrastructure

Promote e-infrastructure to new research communities

Lead and coordinate participation in international cooperation for e-infrastructure

Provide an attractive and sustainable e-infrastructure for all research communities, with the following characteristics:

• High reliability and availability

• Cost effectiveness

• Predictable access

• Interoperability within the national e-infrastructure (compute and storage) and between national and international infrastructures (e.g. PRACE, EUDAT)

Provide services for data analytics of large datasets (Big Data)

High-level objectives

9

From the contract with the Research Council

Om prosjektet

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Aktiviteter:

1. Analysere utviklingen siden etablering; hva har

man lykkes med og ikke?

2. Gjøre en overordnet egenvurdering i tråd med

foreslåtte evalueringskriterier.

3. Gjennomføre analyse av nåsituasjonen / SWOT

4. Gjennomgang metasenter-ledere

Aktiviteter:

1. Etablere syntese av funn i fase 1; hva betyr

egenvurderingen og SWOT for mulige

utviklingslinjer videre for Sigma2?

2. Innspill fra BOTT, Definere 2-4 strategiske

hovedretninger ()

3. Analysere disse langs relevante akser, og gjøre en

vurdering av hvordan de viktigste interessentene

(ansatte, BOTT, Forskningsrådet) vil se på de

aktuelle retningene.

Aktiviteter:

1. Utarbeide beslutningsgrunnlag for strategisk

hovedretning

2. Gjennomføre styresamling

3. Basert på valgt strategi utarbeide overordnede

handlingsplaner tidsplan.

Fase 1: Utvikling og nåsituasjonFase 2: Etablere strategiske

hovedretninger

Fase 3: Beslutte strategisk hovedretning og definere

handlingsplan

Leveranse:

• Kort rapport fra analyse av utvikling og

nåsituasjon

Leveranse :

• Strategisk analyse

Leveranse :

• Strategidokument

• Overordnet handlingsplan

Desember-Februar Januar-? ?-?

1. Evalueringskriteriene

Økonomi

Organisering

Styring og ledelse

Kontakt med interessentene

Investeringer og kjøp av tjenester

Tilgjengelighet av infrastruktur og

data

Ressursfordelingskomiteen

Brukertilfredshet

Støtte til forskningsinfrastrukturer

Tjenestenes relevans for utdanning

Drift

Internasjonal virksomhet

11

The actors… who provides what

International level

National level

University/institutional level

Deparments / Faculties

Institute or research group

12

Service delivery

13

International

National

Institution

Dept./Project

S

e

r

v

i

c

e

s

S

e

r

v

i

c

e

s

S

e

r

v

i

c

e

s

Who provides what?

14

Competence strategy

Metacenter competence and skills

Basic foundation found in operation model

15

16

Sak 5:

Brukerundersøkelse..

xx.april 2017

Critical infrastructure for research

18

… still critical

19

Excellent user support

20

21

… but documentation…

22

Satisfied users!

23

24

Very good response time for extra resources

25

User survey

Satisfied users!

Critical Infrastructure for research

Great user support, documentation not so good…

Very competent staff

26

Sak 7

xx.april 2017

Status på FRAM, NIRD og B1

Status and plans HPC

User support

• User support is in transition from a 4-site support model to a common contact point at

support@metacenter.no

Current hardware

• Currently the load is serviced by Abel, Stallo, Hexagon and Vilje

• The plan is to replace Hexagon and Vilje by 1 July with the new Fram machine

• From 1 July load will be serviced by Abel, Stallo and Fram

• Abel and Stallo will be in production until replaced with a new system at NTNU end 2018

• Currently the only accelerators are the GPUs and Xeon Phis on Abel

• Most likely accelerators will be made available through the NIRD service platform

• Load not suited for HPC is subject to transfer from Fram to NIRD

28

Status and plans HPC (cont’d)

HPC storage

• Except for fast scratch storage, home and project storage will be served through NIRD

Queueing systems

• Service is converging on Slurm on all platforms (Abel, Stallo and Fram)

• Will (re)introduce pri- and non-pri scheduling

• Will provide “optimist” queue for jobs with internal C-R

• Support for commercial projects

• Service will first be made available on Fram and then later on also on Abel and Stallo

29

Status and plans HPC (cont’d)

Software platform

• A common software platform based on EasyBuild and Lmod will be provided on Fram

• User EasyBuild module builds will also be provided

• Platform is developed on Fram and will be eventually be introduced on Abel and Stallo

later

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Historic and future compute demand

0

50,000,000

100,000,000

150,000,000

200,000,000

250,000,000

300,000,000

350,000,000

400,000,000

450,000,000

Co

re h

ou

rs

Notur compute period

RFK allocatable core hours

Granted core hours

Linear usageextrapolation

RFK core hours used

31

HPC ressurser

32

Status and plans project storage and

archive

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Data-centric architecture

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Current and planned research data

servicesdata transfer; can be done via command-line (ssh/sftp) and using sync-n-share (nextcloud). Labs generating large data volumes may wish to sync data automatically.

support; basic and advanced user support, DMP generator and training

data-analysis; science documentation, visualisation and analysis using Jupyternotebook, remote-visualisation (individual software packages), data analytics (e.g. Spark), portals framework and on-demand containerised AppStore

publishing data; minimal metadata collection, data archive deposit, DOI and dataset publishing, search and retrieve published datasets (data reuse), long-term data curation

35

36

Services

Archive

ssh/gridftp

cmd

web

HPC compute

<portals>

sigma-dmp

pilot

<on-demand compue services>

nextCloud

data

analytics

pilot

long-term

data

access

data

analysis

e-science

supportdata transfer

notebook(s)

serv

ice m

atu

rity

direct

compute

trainingadvanced

user

support

basic

support

Visualisation

pilot

37

Climate (IPCC production, ESGC data node, HPC intensive data) – large datasets, avoid moving data, scalability, data longevity and integrity

Neuroscience (HumanBrain, Kavli Inst., INCF)– sensitive data, raw sensor data, data mgmt tool

ELIXIR.NO (next generation sequencing, analysis/processing, sharing/archiving, data product delivery)– portals, AAI, work flow mgmt, access to tools

CLARINO (structured data, corpus)– AAI, data access, DOIs, centralising HPC+data

Biodiversity (GBIF, LifeWatch)– portals, access/sharing, metadata, own PIDs, Biobanks)

Marine environment (sensor collection, basic service needs) …

EPOS (implementation phase, sensor collection) …

Data intensive Science Disiciplines

38

39

A future common architecture?

41

Sak 9

xx.april 2017

Nye SFF´er (som CTCC) lurer på hvordan og når betalings-

regimet

innføres, hvordan berøres man av budsjettkutt hos NFR

Contribution model

43

Background

The Research Council requirement for financial user contribution

Research infrastructures supported by the National Financing Initiative for Research Infrastructure should as the main principle include user contribution as an element in the funding of the operational cost.

User contribution should also contribute to the development and delivery of services which are requested by users.

The introduction of the model for user contribution should not be a hindrance for projects to get free allocations based on scientific merit.

44

RCN intentions:

Increase the total funding for e-infrastructure by increasing the

funding sources

Currently, only Ministry of Education and Research contributes

All programmes in RCN should contribute to operational cost

The basic funding from RCN will not be reduced

45

1725 25

29

50 50

25

37.5 ?

.

.

?

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Former fundingSIGMA

New fundingSIGMA 2

Future funding ?

Contributers (MNOK)

RCN Universities(UiO, UiB, NTNU, UiT)

Nationalinfra. Funding

Users

MNOK

Funding

Long term

funding

Contribution model: General principles

All projects get X TB storage for free on project area. Archiving is free

Compute resources are free with 3 exceptions:

• A) Commercial research and industry

• B) Large projects with RCN fundingSuggested definition of «large» is RCN funding above 10 MNOK

• C) Non-commercial Projects needing Dedicated Resources

This model is planned to be introduced during 2017

Existing research projects will get a reasonable time to adapt to these new rules and make provisions for this in their future applications for funding. (i.e.only projects with new funding from NRC after 2017 where NRC has requiredbudgeting for einfra resources. So far this is only valid for SFF and INFRA applications)

47

Funding versus resource usage

Four oldest universities fund 44.4%, NRC fund the rest

Four oldest universities use approx. 85-89% of compute resources

(2015.2) and approx. 60-75% of storage resources (2016)

Other universities spend less than 1% of compute resources

48

Sak 10

xx.april 2017

Sigma2 omorganiseringen skal frigi mer midler til AUS, når,

hvor og hvordan ?

Advanced User Support (AUS)

Kundemøte UiO

25. April 2017

Hans Eide, UNINETT Sigma2

Avansert brukerstøtte

IKT strategi for forskning (std. mld. 18) peker på AUS som en

forutsetning for konkurransedyktig utvikling, på linje med lagrings-

og beregningsressurser, og videre at tilgang på avansert

brukerstøtte vil være en forutsetning for a fa flere fagmiljøer til a

ta i bruk nye forskningsmetoder.

51

Avansert brukerstøtte

IKT strategi for forskning (std. mld. 18) peker på AUS som en forutsetning for konkurransedyktig utvikling, på linje med lagrings-og beregningsressurser, og videre at tilgang på avansert brukerstøtte vil være en forutsetning for a fa flere fagmiljøer til ata i bruk nye forskningsmetoder.

Målbildet i rapporten er at den nasjonale e-infrastrukturen stiller AUS til rådighet for prosjekter (innrettet mot et spesifikt prosjekt for en kortere periode), eller disipliner (for etablering av fagspesifikk e-infrastruktur, eller tjenester og kompetanse innenfor nye metodiske retninger).

Den nye organiseringen av nasjonal e-infrastruktur skal være med på å styrke ressurstilgangen og tilbudet på AUS.

52

The Metacenter model

National coordination and shared, consolidated resources have cost and efficiency advantages but creates a “distance” to the end-users (researchers)

This is countered by keeping the support staff and competence near where the research is going on, at the universities

Combined with a data-centric architecture for the e-infrastructure, this model combines the advantages of the centralized model and the local model

53

Sigma2 METACENTER

AUS IT.dep

NTNU

Researchers

RFK

(RAC)

IT.dep

UiB

IT.dep

UiO

IT.dep

UiT

Advanced User Support (AUS)

1) Project based AUS:

can be the sole initiative of a researcher or a science area

granted by RFK with 2-3 PMs spent over a maximum of 6 months.

2) Discipline specific AUS

initiated by Sigma2 in cooperation with a science discipline

can have allocations of more than 12 PMs spent over a maximum for 2 years

joint funding

Advanced User Support (AUS)

For the HPC services, project based advanced user support aims at helping scientists to improve or extend the performance and capabilities of their applications. This can be in a number of ways, including:

code parallelization

code porting

code profiling, optimization, benchmarking

improving user-interfaces

software development

For the storage services, project based advanced user support aims at:

assist researchers to create data plans

implementing best practices for collecting and handling data

identifying or defining meta-data schema

identifying suitable storage formats

identifying dedicated or specialised tools to help access or visualize data, utilise the facilities better

55

Strategi for avansert brukerstøtte

Trolig er avansert brukerstøtte en tjeneste som er særlig krevende

a levere på en slik måte at brukerne opplever den som

tilfredsstillende. (Std. mld. 18, IKT strategi for forskning)

For å imøtekomme denne utfordringen er det viktig at vi innen

Metasenteret prioriterer å opprettholde og bygge faglig og IT-

teknisk kompetanse som kan benyttes til AUS.

En effektivisering av driftsoppgaver sammen med bidrag fra

brukermiljøene vil være med på å øke ressurstilgangen for AUS og

applikasjonsforvaltning.

56

Planer for avansert brukerstøtte

Snarlig hente ut gevinsten med effektivisering av drift og omsette

denne til økte ressurser for AUS. Samtidig viktig å sørge for at AUS

aktiviteten faktisk øker i parallell med dette for å beholde ressurser

ved sitene.

Kontinuerlig utlysning for AUS prosjekter. Erfaringen fra andre e-

infrastruktuerer er at dette vil heve kvaliteten og samtidig medføre

bedre utnyttelse av tilgjengelige AUS ressurser.

Kontakten ut mot forskerne er vesentlig. Aktiviteter som kursing og

formidling må benyttes for å markedsføre AUS. Tilsvarende vil

applikasjonsforvaltning stadig komme i kontakt med forskere som

har AUS behov.

57

Shift in tasks

DriftHPC+NIRD+ Tj.plattform

App.ForvaltningHPC+ Tj.plattform

AUS Prosjekt

UiB

NTNU

UiT

UiO

SUM

58

Resource planning, PM allocation

Ongoing discussion

2017 2018 2019

Ops & support 252 248 159

App. mngmt 60 ? 60 60

AUS 39 70 94

Projects 155 144 129

Budget AUS

MNOK

3.65 6.24 8.32

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END

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