3608 - 33 Street NW [email protected] Calgary, AB www.westgrid.ca Design: Grin Design House Inc. >driving{big}science; T2L 2A6 @WestGrid Printing: Sundog Printing WestGrid.2010.Annual.Report UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA ATHABASCA UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA OF BRITISH UNIVERSITY COLUMBIA OF VICTORIA SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY UNIVERSITY OF THE BANFF SASKATCHEWAN CENTRE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF LETHBRIDGE OF MANITOBA UNIVERSITY OF REGINA BRANDON UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF WINNIPEG WestGrid is one of seven partner consortia that make up Compute Canada, a national platform that integrates high performance computing (HPC) resources to create a dynamic computational resource. Compute Canada brings together HPC, data resources and tools, and academic research facilities from around the country. WestGrid encompasses 14 partner institutions across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The consortium provides resources and services such as computing facilities, software, data storage, grid tools, training facilitation and visualization. Compute Canada and WestGrid have built a user community across Canada in disciplines ranging from the sciences and engineering to arts and humanities. This community is supported by a distributed team of technical staff and system architects. 2 >contents; MISSION AND VISION 4 EXECUTIVE MESSAGE 5 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 6 HIGHLIGHTS 8 RESOURCES 10 USAGE AND STORAGE 14 RESEARCHER INTERVIEWS 16 STAFF AND COMMITTEES 26 FINANCIALS 28 PARTNERS 29 3 >mission; To create a world-class sustained Western Canadian platform of shared HPC resources and foster a community of knowledgeable personnel that is accessible by researchers in all disciplines, independent of resource or researcher location. WestGrid also aims to promote HPC nationally and internationally within the Compute Canada framework. >vision; To advance research, support and accelerate innovation and excellence, develop highly qualified personnel, and ensure a competitive advantage and economic prosperity for the well- being of Canadians, as well as promote their well-being through the effective use of HPC. 4 Aside from our facilities, WestGrid’s ability to serve and support big science and data-intensive research stems from the strength of our distributed support team. >executive.message; HPC continues to magnify and multiply our capabilities to research – WestGrid welcomed Patrick O’Leary to provide tackle large-scale research challenges. Since 2004, when leadership and project management for the operations staff WestGrid’s first machines came online, we have witnessed and site team leaders. The WestGrid Executive would also the essential value of these resources continually grow. What like to thank each of the individuals acknowledged in the Staff is different now – and what we view as the “new” era of HPC – and Committees section of this report – from the front-line is the changing scale of today’s research investigations. support to the financial personnel at each partner institution. Their dedication and excellence allow WestGrid to operate Big questions. Big challenges. Big data. Big compute. These smoothly and effectively. are now common terms within WestGrid’s user communities, where petabytes and petaflops are becoming everyday orders The WestGrid Executive would also like to acknowledge of magnitude. In 2009, Microsoft Research identified this shift the forward-thinking strategies and dedication of many key as an emergence into a “fourth paradigm” for science based players in Canada’s innovation sector. Building a national HPC on data-intensive computing. While these scaled-up activities platform cannot be done by one organization alone. Compute are exciting, they also bring a new set of challenges and Canada’s evolution has truly been a collaborative effort, and demands for the tools and resources supporting them. Simply one in which WestGrid is proud to take part. Looking ahead, ramping up compute is not always the answer. Big data also WestGrid will continue to work closely with Compute Canada brings big requirements for storage, sharing, analyzing and and the other regional consortia to align Canada’s HPC visualizing. resources and better support researchers from coast to coast. Currently, WestGrid systems support more than 1,800 In Western Canada, WestGrid’s success is due to its strong registered users and 760 project groups – and these numbers working relationships with its four provincial Optical Regional continue to grow. Purchases made last year added new Advanced Network (ORAN) partners: MRnet (Manitoba), resources to four of our partner institutions, and additional SRnet (Saskatchewan), Cybera (Alberta) and BCNET facilities at other institutions are due to be brought online (British Columbia), and 14 partner institutions. Other key this summer and into the fall. WestGrid’s collaboration collaborators from the 2010/11 year have been WestGrid’s infastructure has also expanded as nine of its partner vendor partners – HP, IBM, SGI and Dell – as well as CANARIE institutions have joined WestGrid’s network of interactive and the Canadian University Council of Chief Information Access Grid videoconferencing facilities. More details on Officers (CUCCIO), who have both been instrumental in all WestGrid infrastructure roll-outs can be found in the helping advance Canadian digital infrastructure. Resources section of this report. Lastly, WestGrid would like to acknowledge its users, who Aside from our facilities, WestGrid’s ability to serve and are an essential part of the HPC framework. Your research support big science and data-intensive research stems from challenges – all sizes – set the bar for achievement, and the strength of our distributed support team. These personnel together our successes have the potential to impact the lives play a critical role in ensuring that researchers make the most of all Canadians. of WestGrid’s resources and that our facilities are responsive to users’ needs. In January – after an extensive search for an individual with specific qualities in high-level leadership and 5 >executive.committee; BYRON SOUTHERN PAUL LU UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA Byron Southern joined the Department Paul Lu is an Associate Professor in the of Physics and Astronomy at the Department of Computing Science at University of Manitoba in 1979 the University of Alberta. His research following appointments at Imperial is in the area of HPC, including College in London, United Kingdom, algorithms, bioinformatics, virtual and the Institut Laue-Langevin in machines and cloud computing. Grenoble, France. He has been a user of various computational In 2004, Lu’s research group created a pan-Canadian resources for more than 40 years, beginning with the IBM metacomputer across 19 universities and 22 administrative 360 architecture he worked with at York University as a domains, known as the Canadian Internetworked Scientific summer undergraduate research student. Subsequently, Supercomputer. He also co-coached the University of Alberta he used HPC resources in France, England and Canada. He team that won the first annual Cluster Computing Challenge is also a member of the National Initiatives Committee of at Supercomputing 2007. Compute Canada. PETER TIELEMAN ToNY KUSALIK UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN Peter Tieleman studied physical Tony Kusalik is a Professor in the chemistry at the University of Department of Computer Science Groningen in the Netherlands, where at the University of Saskatchewan. he obtained his PhD under the There, he is also an Associate supervision of Herman Berendsen, Member of the School of Public one of the pioneers of biomolecular Health, a Member of the Division of simulation. After a year as a European Molecular Biology Biomedical Engineering, and Director of the Bioinformatics Organization (EMBO) fellow at the University of Oxford in Program in the College of Arts and Science. Kusalik’s research Mark Sansom’s research group, Tieleman joined the University interests range from logic programming and operating of Calgary. Since 2005, he has been a Professor in the systems, to computational biology; however, his main focus Department of Biological Sciences and an Alberta Heritage is on bioinformatics, specifically immuno-informatics. Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) – now Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions – Senior Scholar, working in the areas of biomolecular simulation and computational biology, and is now an AHFMR Scientist. Among his distinctions are an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Royal Society of Canada’s Rutherford Memorial Medal in Chemistry, and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Steacie Memorial Fellowship. 6 MARK THACHUK Dugan O’NEIL UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Mark Thachuk is an Associate Dugan O’Neil is an Associate Professor Professor in the Department of in the Department of Physics at Simon Chemistry at the University of British Fraser University. His research is in Columbia. He received his PhD from particle physics at the energy frontier. the University of Waterloo. Thachuk’s He has an MSc from the University of research in chemistry has led to many Alberta and a PhD from the University publications, resulting in fundamental contributions to the of Victoria. In 2003, O’Neil founded a Canadian consortium understanding of the theory and computer simulation of the on the D0 Experiment, a worldwide collaboration of scientists