Westgrid One-Sheet

Compute Canada is... Leading the creation of a powerful, national High Performance Computing platform for academia and scientific research in Canada. Made up of 7 regional consortia. COMPUTE CANADA CONSORTIA SUPPORTING LEADING EDGE RESEARCH Compute Canada’s seven regional partner consortia members are: Compute Canada and WestGrid Compute Canada is a national platform that integrates High Performance WestGrid Computing (HPC) resources at seven partner consortia across the country to ACEnet create a dynamic computational resource. Compute Canada brings together CLUMEQ high performance computers, data resources and tools, and academic RQCHP research facilities from around the country. WestGrid is the HPC consortium HPCVL that encompasses 14 partner institutions across British Columbia, Alberta, SciNet Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Compute Canada and WestGrid have built a SHARCNET user community across Canada in disciplines ranging from the sciences and engineering to arts and humanities. This user community is supported by a Working in collaboration, the consortia distributed and cohesive team of technical staff and system architects. provide overall architecture and planning, software integration, operations and management, and coordination of user WESTGRID PARTNER INSTITUTIONS support for the national HPC platform. WestGrid’s partners include: HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING BRITISH COLUMBIA ALBERTA High Performance Computing (HPC) University of Victoria University of Lethbridge provides high speed computing via University of British Columbia The Banff Centre hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of Simon Fraser University University of Calgary processors, which are harnessed together University of Northern British Columbia University of Alberta via fast communications pipelines and Athabasca University cluster software to work as one big MANITOBA machine. These facilities can solve problems University of Manitoba SASKATCHEWAN hundreds of times faster than today’s University of Winnipeg University of Saskatchewan desktop computers. Brandon University University of Regina COMPUTE CANADA QUICK FACTS WESTGRID NETWORK PROVIDERS Number of partner institutions – 60 All of WestGrid’s computing, data storage and collaboration sites are Number of researchers using HPC resources – connected using dedicated network lightpaths provided by: approximately 4,000 Cybera (AB) www.cybera.ca Number of disciplines supported – 22 major BCNET (BC) www.bc.net categories, from aerospace and medical SRnet (SK) www.srnet.ca imaging to weather forecasting and MRnet (MB) www.MRnet.mb.ca climate studies. CANARIE (Canada) www.canarie.ca IQ-Station Visualizations WESTGRID RESOURCES High-Performance Computing Breezy, University of Calgary Hermes, University of • Appro Victoria • 384 processors • IBM iDataplex • 672 processors Bugaboo, Simon Fraser University Nestor, University of • Dell Victoria Images from the new IQ- • 4,328 processors • IBM iDataplex Station at the UofC. • 2,304 processors Checkers, University of Peter Tieleman is an Alberta Lattice, University of Alberta Heritage Foundation • SGI Altix XE 320 Calgary for Medical Research • 1,280 processors • HP Scientist and Professor in the • 4,096 processors Department of Biological Grex, University of Sciences at the University Manitoba Orcinus, University of of Calgary. Tieleman uses • SGI Altix XE 1300 British Columbia Compute Canada’s high-performance computers • 3,792 processors • HP to simulate the interaction of molecules • 9,772 processors within cell membranes, to better predict how Storage biochemical processes occur in the body. These Silo, University of Saskatchewan simulations require hundreds of processors • Dual IBM/DDN to follow hundreds of thousands of atoms • 1.35 PB Disk simultaneously. With the IQ-Station, Tieleman’s • 1.7 PB Tape group is able to visualize these complex datasets and focus on both details and large-scale features, as users are able to zoom in and move Collaboration through the microscopic levels of a cell. Each WestGrid institution is equipped with an advanced collaboration room incorporating high resolution displays, a state-of-the-art audio Zhangxing John Chen system, video conferencing and other collaboration is Director of the iCentre hardware and software. Simulation & Visualization, Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Visualization Engineering, NSERC/AITF/ The process of visualizing complex data is critical Foundation CMG Chair, and to modern scientific discovery. WestGrid users have AIEE (iCORE) Chair at the University of Calgary. He access to a range of both local (high-resolution is involved in the modeling and simulations of and/or immersive displays) and central (nVidia- reservoirs – complex underground systems that based GPU cluster) visualization infrastructure. are affected by a variety of environmental factors, and are therefore difficult to map. The improved IQ-Station, University of Calgary modeling tools being developed by Chen’s team The IQ-Station (“Inexpensive Interactive Immersive Interface”) are helping to forecast the production behavior allows researchers to interact with complex datasets. The of oil and gas fields, and aid the development system combines a 3D television with two computers, a and efficiency of wells. With added 3D tools, they monitor, six tracking cameras and a Nintendo Wii controller. are able to more accurately study the complex behavior of these reservoirs and improve recovery technologies. www.westgrid.ca .

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