DTU Computing Center (DCC) was started in 2009 where operations of DTUs G databar (G-bar) and central High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters were in-sourced from an external provider. Parts of the G databar infrastructure had been operated by internal staff before then and HPC support had been provided to researchers and students from all of DTU since about year 2000. It is these experiences and competences DCC are established around. Recently (2013) DCC expanded into a DTU HPC Competence Center by hiring in two HPC specialists (both former researcher utilizing HPC in their research) with the purpose of making access to HPC infrastructures easier for researcher and students in particular but also to companies.
We provide a central DTU service available to all staff and students at DTU and are located at the Department for Applied Mathematics and Computer Science due to the departments areas of research and teaching (i.e. GPU Lab which DCC partners with). This provides us a solid hinterland to draw upon if needed, and ensures a strong relationship with teaching and research activities within HPC.
The HPC services we offer are:
- HPC support to researchers, students and companies
- HPC operations services to HPC cluster owners
- HPC competence dissemination through trainings, courses and conferences
HPC support
HPC Support is provided on basic as well as advanced levels by our specialized staff (HPC sysadmins and HPC specialists). Support is provided within areas such as accessing and using HPC clusters, hardware / architecture consulting regarding purchase for specific tasks, compilers, code implementation / optimization on various architectures (CPU and various accelerators ), algorithms etc.
HPC cluster hosting
HPC cluster hosting services are provided for cluster owners that do not wish to or do not have the competencies to operate a cluster themselves. Our setup is designed so that HPC resources can bee pooled, meaning that resources can be utilized by others if available, but still guaranteed to be quickly accessible to the resource owner(s). This leads to easier access to HPC resources as well as optimized utilization of the resources. This regards compute as well as storage resources – i.e. parallel filesystem and data archiving storages.
We can assist with choice of architecture, hardware specification, configuration, implementation and operation with regards to specific work loads and tasks to be executed, and of course the purchase itself.
HPC Competence Dissemination
By helping researchers and students from all over DTU as well as collaborating with other HPC operations sites we gather a great deal of “HPC knowledge” and experience within different areas research. This knowledge we disseminate through courses, trainings and publications as well as our HPC support services.
UNIX databar (G-bar) services
We also provide more generic UNIX based infrastructures and services for teaching and research at DTU in the so-called G databar. Some of the services provided here are (please visit the G bar web page for more information):
- File storage, and personal web page to all students at DTU
- UNIX terminal services providing programs for teaching and an interactive HPC environment
- DTU Software download – licensed software available to DTU staff and students
- SVN and GIT repositories