The role of prototyping in the overall PRACE strategy Herbert Huber, GCS@Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Germany Thomas Lippert, GCS@Jülich, Germany March 28, 2011
PRACE Prototyping Objectives Identify and evaluate technologies for future energy-efficient multi-petascale HPC systems Furtherance of European HPC Technology developments 2
Prototyping Objective #1: Assessment The PRACE Tier-0 procurement strategy addresses Meeting user s demands: capability, capacity, architectures Provide world-class systems and services: capability, reliability Value for money: TCO, power and cooling efficiency Prototyping is mandatory to take informed decisions Get first hand access to latest technology before general availability Assess technologies, components, and systems for their suitability and maturity Provide feedback and cooperate with technology providers to influence roadmaps Cover short and medium term time-scale 3
Prototyping Objective #2: European HPC Technology Developments PRACE has established itself as a key player for HPC in Europe Vendors are seeking contact and share information Vendors join STRATOS through PROSPECT and Ter@tec Several P1IP prototype proposals involve In kind R&D contributions from European technology providers or European labs of world-wide acting companies IBM/Switzerland and Germany, Intel/Germany, Mellanox/Israel, Nvidia/Germany and UK Genuine European developments ARM/UK, numascale/norway, Xyratex/UK, MEGWARE/Germany Recent evidence of increasing HPC developments in Europe Bull HPC product line with installations at CEA and Juelich Joint development of QPACE by IBM Böblingen/Germany and academic partners Development of SuperMUC direct water cooling solution by IBM Böblingen/Germany 4
Prototyping is Mandatory for PRACE Identification of User Requirements Assessment of emerging Technologies Recommendations for: - Procurements - Deployment of mature Software Technologies Technology Watch Joint Developments with Vendors Recommendations for: further Developments Prototyping is a mandatory step in the selection and deployment of new technologies Prototyping is a vehicle for cooperation with technology providers 5
Prototyping in the PRACE Projects Preparatory Phase Established a framework for cooperation with vendors: STRATOS (PRACE advisory group for Strategic Technologies) Identified and assessed systems and components for Tier-0 systems on a short (2010) and medium (beyond 2012) timeframe Technology prototypes focused on accelerators and programming languages 1 st Implementation Phase Assessment of emerging hardware and software technologies Focus on energy-efficiency and programming paradigms 2 nd Implementation Phase plans Use STRATOS advice to select relevant technologies Focus on system software and development environments Application co-design vehicles instead of synthetic benchmarks Prototyping is a permanent task 6
STRATOS Consortium STRATOS working groups: - Technology Watch - Exascale Software - Green-IT & HPC Leadership Resources SARA Benefits of participating in STRATOS: - Access to knowledge on novel HPC technologies - Exchange of expertise with other HPC users How can industrial users and vendors participate in STRATOS? - Via PROSPECT e.v. or Ter@tec membership - Via application to become a STRATOS delegate 36 Members 72 Members 7
Conclusions: PRACE Prototyping is a key element for the technological evolution of the PRACE Research Infrastructure Addressing energy- and cooling-efficiency, high density, parallelism, reliability, is contributing to an overall European HPC technology strategy PRACE Prototypes: short to medium time-scale developments EC Exascale calls and envisaged ETP: 2018-2020 time-scale More insight on the ETP topic will be provided by Dr. M. Ramalho tomorrow is contributing to provide Europe with independent access to HPC technology and know-how 8
More technical information: http://www.prace-project.eu/documents/public-deliverables/d8-3-2- extended.pdf http://www.praceproject.eu/documents/prace_workshop_on_new_languages_and_futu re_technology_prototypes.pdf PROSPECT e.v.: http://www.prospect-hpc.eu/ Ter@tec: http://www.teratec.eu/gb/hpc/index.html Contact information: Dr. Herbert Huber (WP9 Leader & STRATOS spokesman), huber@lrz.de Iris Christadler (WP9 Co-Leader), christadler@lrz.de GCS @ Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Germany 9
COMMENTS? QUESTIONS? 10