Approaching a Data Center

Guy Almes

net@edu meetings — Tempe5 February 2007

Texas A&M University

Outline

• Current situation

• How a Data Center might help Texas A&M

• How a Data Center relates to other cyberinfrastructure coordination

• Promising approaches

• Obstacles we’ll likely face

Texas A&M University

Current Situation

• Mixture of central and distributed facilities– Existing CIS center at Teague – Numerous scattered small data centers

• Mixture of shared and dedicated HPC– New 640-processor IBM p575 cluster

• Latest of series refreshed every three years

– Numerous ‘small supercomputers’– Some use of NSF and DOE national centers

Texas A&M University

How a Data Center might help Texas A&M

• Improved electrical power conditioning, costs, and approach to backup

• Markedly improved air conditioning• Cheaper and better system administration• Free up space on campus for faculty and

students• Enable computational- and data-intensive

science– across many departments and colleges

Texas A&M University

Relating to other cyberinfrastructure coordination

• Advanced instruments– e.g., Microscopy and Imaging Center

• Visualization facilities– e.g., Immersive Visualization Center

• Regional and national resources– NSF TeraGrid, DOE NERSC, etc.– LEARN statewide fiber network

• Enabling effective use– training, curriculum, advanced user support

Texas A&M University

Promising approaches

• Combine resources for a smaller number of larger HPC and capacity clusters

• Focus on large-scale online (and nearline) storage• Make this storage accessible at high speed

– to each of the large clusters

– to key instrument and visualization labs

– to key user departments

– to wide-area networks

• Determine resulting space, power, and AC needs

Texas A&M University

• Perhaps most importantly, work with the faculty– to assess data/computing/etc need– to assess resources– to include in planning and advocacy

• Keep ‘bricks and mortar and human investments parallel

Texas A&M University

Obstacles

• Electricity is ‘free’

• Phenomenon of the ‘vanity cluster’

• Need for multi-year campus-wide planning