Peta-5: A National Facility for Petascale Data Intensive Computation and Analytics

剑桥大学的PETA-5计划汇集了来自10个不同机构的15名世界领先的HPC系统和应用专家，领导创建突破性的HPC和数据分析能力，将对英国的研究、工业和卫生部门产生重大的全国影响。PETA-5旨在为建立和可持续发展新的EPSRC Tier 2 HPC网络做出重大贡献。剑桥第二级中心与其他第一级、第二级和第三级利益攸关方合作，旨在形成一个连贯、协调和富有成效的国家电子基础设施(NE-I)生态系统。这一大大增强的计算研究支持能力将使计算和以数据为中心的研究产出大幅增加，推动学术研究发现和更广泛的英国知识经济的增长。PETA-5系统将是英国EPSRC研究中可用的最大的异类数据密集型HPC系统之一。为了创造在国家层面产生影响所需的系统能力和容量方面的临界量，剑桥大学汇集了来自该大学的资金和设备资源，STFC DiRAC和EPSRC Tier 2提议创造总资本设备价值1150万GB；对EPSRC的请求是500万GB。大学将保证从服务开始之日起4年内支付系统的所有运营费用，并讨论是否继续运行第五年。剑桥大学将确保EPSRC资助的PETA-5元素的80%用于EPSRC研究项目，其中65%的EPSRC资助元素通过使用轻量级资源分配委员会免费提供给任何英国EPSRC资助的项目，15%用于剑桥EPSRC研究，20%出售给英国行业，以推动英国知识经济。Peta-5系统将于2017年5月投入使用，届时将成为英国运行中能力最强的HPC系统。总体而言，Peta-5将提供来自3个异类计算元素的3千万亿次浮点运算(PF)，1PF Intel X86、1PF Intel Kn1和1PF NIVIDIA Pascal GPU(PETA-1)通过PB/S高性能计算结构(PETA-2)连接到一个极端I/O固态存储池(PETA-3)、一个千万亿级数据分析(机器学习+Hadoop)池(PETA-4)和一个大型15 PB分层存储解决方案(PETA-5)，所有这些都在单一执行环境下进行。这在英国创造了一种新的HPC功能，专为满足负担得起的千万亿级模拟和结合复杂数据分析的数据密集型工作负载的需求而设计。正是这些功能的结合开启了新一代计算科学研究。Peta-5服务的核心科学理由基于三个广泛的科学主题：材料科学和计算化学；计算工程和智慧城市；健康信息学。之所以选择这些主题，是因为它们代表了EPSRC的重要研究领域，这些领域显示出从PETA-5的数据密集型高性能计算能力中获得的巨大好处。这项服务显然对异质计算和数据密集型科学的许多其他领域都有价值。因此，第四个横向主题“异质--数据密集型科学”被包括在内。RAC的初始主题分配将是：材料30%，工程30%，健康，20%，异质数据密集型20%。Peta-5设施将推动国家层面的研究发现和影响，创造英国最大、最具成本效益的Petascale HPC资源，使Petascale模拟进入广泛的研究项目和英国公司的范围。此外，Peta-5是英国第一个专门为大规模机器学习和数据分析设计的HPC系统，结合了HPC和大数据领域，承诺从大数据革命中释放知识和经济效益。

The Peta-5 proposal from the University of Cambridge brings together 15 world-leading HPC system and application experts from 10 different institutions to lead the creation of a breakthrough HPC and data analytics capability that will deliver significant National impact to the UK research, industry and health sectors.Peta-5 aims to make a significant contribution towards the establishment and sustainability of a new EPSRC Tier 2 HPC network. The Cambridge Tier 2 Centre working in collaboration with other Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 stakeholders aims to form a coherent, coordinated and productive National e-Infrastructure (Ne-I) ecosystem. This greatly strengthened computational research support capability will enable a significant increase in computational and data centric research outputs, driving growth in both academic research discovery and the wider UK knowledge economy. The Peta-5 system will be one of the largest heterogeneous data intensive HPC systems available to EPSRC research in the UK. In order to create the critical mass in terms of system capability and capacity needed to make an impact at National level Cambridge have pooled funding and equipment resources from the University, STFC DiRAC and this EPSRC Tier 2 proposal to create a total capital equipment value of £11.5M; the request to EPSRC is £5M. The University will guarantee to cover all operational costs of the system for 4 years from the service start date, with the option to run for a fifth year to be discussed. Cambridge will ensure that 80% of the EPSRC funded element of Peta-5 is deployed on EPSRC research projects, with 65% of the EPSRC funded element of Peta-5 being made available to any UK EPSRC funded project free of charge by use of a light weight resource allocation committee, 15% going to Cambridge EPSRC research and 20% being sold to UK industry to drive the UK knowledge economy. The Peta-5 system will be the most capable HPC system in operation in the UK when it enters service in May 2017. In total Peta-5 will provide 3 petaflops (PF) of sustained performance derived from 3 heterogeneous compute elements, 1PF Intel X86, 1PF Intel KNL and 1PF NIVIDIA Pascal GPU (Peta-1) connected via a Pb/s HPC fabric (Peta-2) to an extreme I/O solid state storage pool (Peta-3), a petascale data analytics (Machine Learning + Hadoop) pool (Peta-4) and a large 15 PB tiered storage solution (Peta-5), all under a single execution environment. This creates a new HPC capability in the UK specifically designed to meet the requirements of both affordable petascale simulation and data intensive workloads combined with complex data analytics. It is the combination of these features which unlocks a new generation of computational science research.The core science justification for the Peta-5 service is based on three broad science themes: Materials Science and Computational Chemistry; Computational Engineering and Smart Cities; Health Informatics. These themes were chosen as they represent significant EPSRC research areas, which demonstrate large benefit from the data intensive HPC capability of Peta-5. The service will clearly be valuable for many other areas of heterogeneous computing and Data Intensive science. Hence a fourth horizontal thematic of "Heterogeneous - Data Intensive Science" is included. Initial theme allocation in the RAC will be: Materials 30%, Engineering 30%, Health, 20%, Heterogeneous - Data Intensive 20%. The Peta-5 facility will drive research discovery and impact at national level, creating the largest and most cost effective petascale HPC resource in the UK, bringing petascale simulation within the reach of a wide range of research projects and UK companies. Also Peta-5 is the first UK HPC system specifically designed for large scale machine learning and data analytics, combining the areas of HPC and Big Data, promising to unlock both knowledge and economic benefit from the Big Data revolution.