1. Update for HPC-SIG, July
2013

2. 1. Our expertise
2. Supercomputing on
demand
3. Soul of the new
machine
4. Next steps
Topics

4. HPC Midlands builds on
HPC expertise at
Loughborough University
and the University of
Leicester.
We have the infrastructure
and expert team to drive
innovation in research and
industry.
Our Expertise

5. Our Expertise

6. Our Expertise

7. Our Expertise

8. Our Expertise

10. Why make a huge capital
investment in HPC when you can
pay for the capacity you need,
when you need it?
HPC Midlands provides cost-
effective supercomputing on
demand for research and
industry, delivered via the JANET
network.
Supercomputing on Demand

11. - Not just a system for
academics who write their own
code
- We asked industrial HPC users
what they needed from us
- Key requirement: Flexible
software licensing
- Result: Deep engagement with
Independent Software Vendors
Supercomputing on Demand

12. Supercomputing on Demand

14. 3,000 cores (48 Teraflops)
11 chassis (18 blades each)
15TB RAM
120TB Lustre storage
Non-blocking QDR Infiniband
188 compute node blades:
2 x 2.0GHz (8 core) Sandy Bridge
140 with 64GB RAM (4GB/core)
48 with 128GB RAM (8GB/core)
Soul of the New Machine

15. Commercial software:
- CD-adapco Star-CCM+
- ANSYS CFX
- MSC Marc
- Intel Cluster Studio / MKL
Open Source:
- OpenFOAM
- Quantum Espresso
- DL-POLY
- NETCDF
- pHDF5
- PETSc (and
more!)
Soul of the New Machine

16. Next Steps

17. Next Steps

18. Next Steps

19. Slide credit: Gary Page / Leigh Lapworth

20. Next Steps
Industrial HPC user requirements:
- Complex licensing scenarios
- Virtualization!
- Compatibility with their choice of OS,
scheduler, interconnect, …
- Ambitious targets for turn-around
time

21. Next Steps
- Requirement for a particular ISV
software revision
- Take over allocated resources
- Real time processing, no queueing
- Increasing interest in Open Source,
esp. OpenFOAM
- Looking for “national grid” 

22. www.hpc-midlands.ac.uk
martin@hpc-midlands.ac.uk
@HPC_Midlands