IISER sets an example in computational science infrastructure

Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Bhopal aims to produce highly qualified UG and PG students in the various branches of science. The focus is to integrate science education and research with a motive of attracting bright students and world class faculty across the globe.

The basic requirement of the institute was to have a dedicated facility which could cater to the needs of the groups working on computational science. Since the existing computing infrastructure then was inadequate to fulfill the needs of all groups and resources were not very well designed for research purposes of such proportions, the institute decided to adopt ‘High Performance' computing which is a more advanced platform. With the new campus coming up, IISER required advanced technological solutions with upgraded infrastructure to facilitate research and science education on a much higher level. The institute also required a data center solution.

Obstacles on the way

Some of the key challenges involving the research work included computing infrastructure and cost effectiveness. Power and space also posed as potential barriers because they were limited and could not be used extensively for work stations. Research on such great a scale required abundance of resources on parameters like memory, CPU speed and parallelization which could only be achieved upto some extent using work stations and hence they were not scalable enough or could not be used extensively for research over a long period of time.

In terms of support the need of the hour for was to be aware of the situation of IISER which was complicated due to their set up in Bhopal where technical support was not readily available for them and In addition to that they were setting up a new campus hence they would be facing some serious starting problems there as well .

IISER was also looking forward to some fresh developments in Computational science and expected that IBM would extend much needed support in the beginning and continue to assess the specific needs of the institute. For instance if IISER was developing codes then it wanted IBM to help them out and this demanded a specific skill set hence IISER was on the lookout for top players in the business. In addition IISER didn't want to spend too much money on power infrastructure and needed a technology which was space efficient as well.

Scout for the Right Solution

Since an expert team was needed to manage resources in a difficult city like Bhopal hence the choice of the vendor had to be done in a very careful manner and the key points upon which the vendors were shortlisted were number of installations in the country, global installations and the global ranking in supercomputing. Another criteria which was a factor was that the vendors had to feature in the top 10 positions amongst the top 500 companies offering supercomputing and IBM easily featured there with their expertise, the other major competitors being HP and Dell. IISER had a great experience while interacting with IBM because of global standards, professionalism and notable technological prowess.

The Eureka Moment

After screening various solution, the management identified that the best HPC solution is offered by IBM. It is a highly energy efficient system and was also specific to the demands of IISER and since it could cater to most applications being generic in nature hence it was selected by IISER as it proved to be an ideal solution for their computing problems.

IBM was also able to propose a database solution to IISER which would act as an asset and would solve most of the problems related to data storage. In addition to that, IBM spent a lot of time explaining about the system and how it would be both space and energy efficient and how the networking would actually function.

In addition to HPC, IBM also built a data center solution to host innumerous high density racks within the limited space. The challenge was to build data center solution to host these high density racks and at the same time to ensure that there shall be enough space available for additional two racks in future, over and above all data center equipment's shall be fit within 520 Sq ft . IBM created solution to fit in these requirement and also they were able to create separate UPS/Electrical room with above given space by doing partitioning work and making separate entrance for UPS/Electrical room to ensure data center safety. Data center solution was designed with Air cooled chiller system in N+1 configuration and having RDHx fitted with each rack. To support uninterrupted power supply to IT racks, we have provided three nos of UPS's of 60 KVA each with parallel arrangement in N+1 configuration.

Sizing the solution given on 132 node cluster

IISER talked to all groups who needed HPC and enquired about their needs and once they had an extended discussion the numbers were totaled up and converted into nodes of a certain kind and after that it was decided that the ideal solution to fulfill research requirements would be a 132 node cluster; where a cluster is typically a set of loosely connected or tightly connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single system.

Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and availability over that of a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability. It was also decided that the cluster would be expanded in near future to comply with usage standards and increase productivity.

Benefits of HPC solution

The major benefit which HPC provided was that it increased the speed of calculations and gave IISER the confidence to deliver projects of larger size which were otherwise not possible. Another advantage with HPC was that a lot of people who were not familiar with it or computing were also encouraged to use this facility and since computing is as integral as lab and research based work, HPC made it easier for IISER employees and research scholars to overcome the fear of computing. HPC is a high energy efficient technology, a fact reinstated as it helped save at least 60% of power consumption at IISER. Even in terms of maintenance, HPC is very cost efficient contributing the most in terms of productivity.

Achievements

Since IISER recently featured in the names having top 10 installations in the nation hence it can be said that IISER is expanding in terms of supercomputing and this gives them recognition and also equips them with an additional edge when it comes to hiring computational faculty. High Performance Computing can be one of the benefits provided to potential employees and research scholars by IISER. Even students can learn about this facility in nearby future and hence it can be leveraged not only for the benefit of IISER but also to increase the scope of computational science in the nation, setting an example.