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Gauss Call No. 6 for Large Scale Projects

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Supercomputing at the leading edge

It is the mission of the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) to 
offer computing power of the highest performance class for 
computational sciences and engineering at its three member sites 
in Garching (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, LRZ), Juelich (Juelich 
Supercomputing Centre, JSC), and Stuttgart (High Performance 
Computing Center Stuttgart, HLRS). To ensure a most efficient 
utilisation of these highly valuable resources, GCS provides its 
users with worldleading support, education, and dissemination of 
best practices and methods in simulation science. GCS aims, in 
particular, at innovative and scientifically challenging large 
scale projects that cannot be carried out within smaller 
infrastructures. Such projects will also benefit most from the 
existing successful support structures within the GCS and from 
their continuous synchronisation and optimisation.

State-of-the-art systems

The GCS offers a highest-level computing and networking infrastructure. 
At JSC the first European PetaFlop Supercomputer, a 72 rack IBM Blue 
Gene/P system is available; HLRS provides the first installation step 
of HERMIT based on CRAY XE6 with AMD Interlagos and Gemini Interconnect 
with more than 1 PetaFlop/s; and LRZ offers its new IBM iDataPlex as a 
migration system for its upcoming Petascale system. The architectures 
of these machines are complementary and can accommodate a broad spectrum 
of applications. The systems within the GCS are continuously upgraded 
in a round robin fashion.

Large-Scale Projects 

Large-scale projects and highly scalable parallel applications are
characterised by large computing time requirements, not only for short
time frames, but frequently for longer time periods. The GCS centres
will guarantee that large-scale projects can fully utilise the assigned
resources, if necessary at the expense of normal or smaller projects.

Projects are classified as "Large-Scale", if they require more than 5%
of the potentially available CPU cycles on a member centre's high-end
system, i.e.

  * more than 70 Mill. core-hours at JSC (corresponding to 24 rack
    months IBM BG/P)
  * more than 30 Mill. core-hours at HLRS (HERMIT Step 1)
  * more than 4 Mill. core-hours at LRZ (IBM iDataPlex, Migration
    System for SuperMUC)

For these large-scale projects a competitive review and resource
allocation process is established by the GCS. Requests for resources
below these limits will be accepted by the individ-u-al member centres.
Requests above these limits will be handed over to GCS, handled
according to the joint procedures, and will be reviewed in the national
context. Projects of smaller scale will be still handled by the local
GCS member site.

A "Call for Large-Scale Projects" is published by the Gauss Centre
twice a year. Dates for closure of calls are usually at the end of
February and at the end of August of each year.

Eligible are applications from publicly funded academic and research
institutions, e.g., universities, Max-Planck Society and Helmholtz
Association.

The deadline for the current call is 31 August 2011, 17:00.

The next call will be issued in January 2012.

Answering the Call

Leading, ground-breaking projects should deal with complex, demanding,
innovative simula-tions that would not be possible without the GCS
infrastructure, and which can benefit from the exceptional resources
provided by GCS.

Application for a large-scale project should be performed by filling in
the electronic application form that can be accessed from the GCS web
page "Computing Time": 

   http://www.gauss-centre.eu/computing-time

Note that the regular application forms of the GCS member centres can
be reached from there, and users are encouraged to choose a centre that
provides the architecture and software most appropriate for their
programs.

The proposals for large-scale projects will be first reviewed with
respect to their technical feasibility. Afterwards, they will be
peer-reviewed for a comparative scientific evaluation. On the basis of
this evaluation by a GCS committee the projects will be approved for a
period of one year and given their allocations.

Criteria for decision

Applications for compute resources are evaluated only according to
their scientific excellence.

  * The proposed scientific tasks must be scientifically challenging,
    and their treatment must be of substantial interest.
  * Clear scientific goals and verifiable milestones on the way to
    reach these goals.
  * The implementation must be technically feasible on the available
    computing system, and must be in proportion to the performance
    characteristics of these systems.
  * The Principal Investigator must have a proven scientific record,
    and she/he must be able to successfully accomplish the proposed
    tasks. In particular, applicants must possess the necessary
    specialized know-how for the effective use of high-end computing
    systems. This has to be proven in the application for compute
    resources, e.g. by presenting work done on smaller computing
    systems, scaling studies etc.
  * The specific features of the high-end computers should be optimally
    exploited by the program implemen-tations. This will be checked
    regularly during the course of the project.

Further Information

For further help please contact the member sites via 
http://www.gauss-centre.eu/contacts 

Current call as pdf:
http://www.gauss-centre.eu/datapool/page/71/GaussCall6.pdf 

 
--
Dr. Thomas Boenisch
High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS)
Nobelstr. 19, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany
Phone: +49-711-685-87222
Fax:   +49-711-685-65832
Email: boenisch@hlrs.de 

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Gauss Call No. 6 for Large Scale Projects "Thomas Boenisch" <boenisch@hlrs.de> - 2011-08-05 19:13 +0000

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