Operational Services for the HPC Ecosystem

The “Operational Services for the HPC Ecosystem” work package is structured in four tasks. These are:

  • Task 6.1 “Operational and Coordination of the Common PRACE Operational Services”
  • Task 6.2 “Prototyping new Services towards EDI”
  • Task 6.3 “Link and Collaboration with other e-Infrastructures”
  • Task 6.4 “New Services to Industry toward Open R&D”

The first aim of the work package is to maintain and update the PRACE infrastructure and to maintain and develop infrastructural services. The second aim is to assess possible collaboration with other e-Infrastructures, CoEs and industries.

Task 6.1

Task 6.1 – “Operational and Coordination of the Common PRACE Operational Services” is in charge of the maintenance and monitoring of the core, optional and additional infrastructural services provided by PRACE to the European users of Tier-0 and Tier-1 systems. The list of services is published in the PRACE Service Catalogue, a document that is under a regular revision in order to provide the correct functionality of the PRACE infrastructure, and in order to achieve common rules for HPC systems operations. The main aim of the task is to maintain the infrastructure resources available and the operational services updated. Because the infrastructure is made of several different HPC systems, it is continuously updated according to decommissioning and integration of HPC systems.

Task 6.2

Task 6.2 – “Prototyping new Services towards EDI” is in charge to identify scientific and technical use cases which are common to research communities. A list of the following 4 such cases is already identified:

  • Urgent computing
  • Smart post processing tools including in-situ visualization
  • The deployment of containers and full virtualized tools into HPC infrastructures
  • Evaluation of new prototypes for Data Analytics services.

Additionally, based on an evaluation of new services for industrial users that is done within Task 6.4, it is decided whether include these services, too. For each service that is selected to become a regular service, it is included, after a review procedure, into the PRACE Service Catalogue and deployed. Then the Task 6.1 is in charge of the maintenance and update of that service.

European HPC Ecosystem

Further to the European HPC Infrastructure, PRACE provides other operational services for the HPC Ecosystem depicted above.

Task 6.3

Task 6.3 – “Link and Collaboration with other e-Infrastructures” is in charge to identify possible partners in the ecosystem of the European infrastructures in order to cooperate on the improvement of the services provided to the scientific research communities and to identify common strategies towards them.

Task 6.4

Task 6.4 – “New Services to Industry toward Open R&D” is in charge to assess through different pilots with European industries the technical, legal and financial requirements needed for a possible deployment of pre-competitive R&D (delayed or no publication of the results) and production activities beyond the current Open R&D offer. This task has been established for the first time in the PRACE-6IP.