Some Myths about Access to and Charging for the Cambridge High Performance Computer Service (HPCS)

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Some Myths about Access to and Charging for the
Cambridge High Performance Computer Service
(HPCS)
www.hpc.cam.ac.uk
Mike Payne Cavendish Laboratory mcp1_at_cam.ac.uk
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Darwin Dell PowerEdge 1950 2340 cores, 1170 3.0
GHz Intel Woodcrest processors Infinipath
(infiniband) throughout cluster ClusterVision
software stack ( HPC add-ons)
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Paying for it
The new era of Full Economic Costs (FEC)
demands that all University facilities are
sustainable which means that they must recover
all their costs from users who in turn raise the
money needed from research grants. OR just
cop out and put it in with the rest of the
University infrastructure (which then becomes but
a small component in UK Universities roughly
200 overhead rate)
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Paying for it
The HPCS has (almost uniquely) been set up as a
Major Research Facility under FEC and so it is
supposed to recover all its costs from research
grants.
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Paying for it
However, due to the efforts of the HPCS Director,
Dr. Paul Calleja, the HPCS has been able to
attract significant investment from
industry. This money will allow access to
significant amounts of the computational resource
without requiring FEC. These resources which will
be targeted towards adventure and innovation in
HPC. So the Cambridge HPCS will continue to offer
free, rapid access to all users - particularly to
new users of the system and/or HPC. This can
include access for collaborators in other
institutions.
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Paying for it
BUT Large and established users of HPC will be
expected to pay for access and they will be given
priority in the queues to deliver the time they
have paid for. As new users expand their use of
the service they will be expected to apply for
funding to pay for time. Note that the process
of applying for funding will be perceived
positively by the HPCS even if the application is
not successful.
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Cost Comparisons
Charging for the HPCS is based on 'core hours' of
use This cost is 7p per core hour This is
equivalent to 9 per TFlop hour (Linpack) In
comparison the new national HPC service HECToR
charges 63.54 per TFlop hour (Linpack)