Overview
Advanced research has moved beyond the capacity of a single computer for detailed multi-level simulations, data analysis, and large-scale computations. Because of the increasing complexity and requirement for sheer computational horsepower, these needs are increasingly met with tightly integrated cluster systems consisting of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of processors, terabytes to petabytes of high-performance storage, and high bandwidth/low latency interconnects consuming megawatts of power. In addition to the need for powerful hardware, the software that runs on these systems must be written to take advantage of the computational power available on a particular system. This is the domain of High-Performance Computing (HPC).
IDRE-HPC Group
The IDRE-HPC group is a strong team of experienced researchers in High Performance Computing. The group provides its expertise and support to empower scholars in their abilities to compute on high-end computer systems. IDRE-HPC also supports the Hoffman2 shared cluster and manages the IDRE Cluster Hosting Program for UCLA researchers. These resources meet campus needs for small- to medium-sized cluster computing and may provide a starting point to resources at national computing centers.
The IDRE-HPC group offers consulting to members of the UCLA community. To learn more, please visit this page.
Hoffman2 Cluster
The Hoffman2 Cluster is a project of the Institute for Digital Research and Education (IDRE) Cluster Hosting Program. It opened to users on January 28, 2008. The Hoffman2 Cluster is managed and operated by the IDRE Research Technology Group under the direction of Lisa Snyder.
UCLA’s Shared Hoffman2 Cluster currently consists of 1,300+ 64-bit nodes and over 20,000 cores, with an aggregate of over 50TB of memory. Each node has 1GB Ethernet network and a DDR, QDR, FDR, or EDR Infiniband interconnect. The cluster includes a job scheduler, compilers for C, C++, Fortran 77, 90 and 95 on the current Shared Cluster architecture, applications and software libraries that offer languages, compilers and software specific to Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Engineering, Mathematics, Visualization, Programming and an array of miscellaneous software. The current peak CPU performance of the cluster is approximately 150 Trillion Floating Point, double precision, operations per second (TFLOPS) plus another 200 TFLOPS with GPUs. Hoffman2 is currently the largest and most powerful shared cluster in the University of California system.
Additional Hoffman2 resources for researchers include complete system administration for contributed cores, cluster access through dual, redundant 100Gb network interconnects to the campus backbone, the capability to run large parallel jobs that can take advantage of the cluster’s InfiniBand interconnect, and access to a multi-node NetApp storage system. Current HPC storage capacity is 2.5 petabytes, augmented by 250TB of flash-based storage for home and scratch directories and over 2PB of backup storage.
The cluster is also an end point on the Globus Online service using the 100Gb network interconnect backbone, thus providing researchers a facility for fast and reliable data movement between Hoffman2 and most leadership class facilities across the USA.
To learn more about the Hoffman2 Cluster, please visit the Hoffman2 Cluster website. On the website you will find a wealth of information, such as:
For general assistance with any HPC-related topics please send an email to hpc@ucla.edu.
Pipeline to National Leadership Class Facilities
IDRE is part of the NSF XSEDE Campus Champion Program, which provides information about national high performance computing opportunities and resources and assists researchers by:
• Providing information about high performance computing and XSEDE resources
• Assisting in getting researchers access to allocations of high performance computing resources
• Facilitating workshops about the use of high performance computing resources and services
• Providing contacts within the high performance computing community for quick problem resolution
IDRE is part of the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s Triton Affiliates and Partners Program (TAPP) and can assist with scaling issues and students that can help predict the timing on large computing resources. IDRE also has strong relationships with NSF and DOE centers, including NERSC, NASA, ALCC and INCITE.
Researchers may join the UCLA IDRE Pipeline group or contact: hpc@ucla.edu