OpenStack is a set of software tools for building and managing cloud-computing platforms for public and private clouds and is managed by the OpenStack Foundation, a non-profit organisation that oversees both development and community building around the project. The addition enhances the CHPC’s significant portfolio of hardware and software applications that are available to the research community to allow them to perform world-class research.
The CentOS based OpenStack Cloud is a self-service Virtual Machine (VM) provisioning portal where common administrative tasks like VM creation, recouping of unused resources, and infrastructure maintenance tasks are automated and capacity analysis, utilisation, and end-user costing reports can be generated. It has replaced the centre’s VMware virtual environment or IT-Shop cluster that had limited memory resources due to the large demand of numerous projects requiring high-specification virtual machines and was no longer able to serve the requirements of CHPC users when its capacity deteriorated over time.
Improved service offering
The CHPC’s new virtual environment will offer the following benefits and functionalities:
“The cloud platform further enable CHPC to gather the necessary expertise both technical and operational to develop, provision and operate a national federated OpenStack platform, and allow for global connectivity in a virtual environment for mega project like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and those similar in stature”, said Ms Dorah Thobye, Technical Manager: CHPC.
Technical specifications of the CHPC’s virtual environment
The new solution is built on Supermicro server and storage systems, using the Supermicro TwinPro servers to provide 320cores/640threads (2.50 - 3.90GHz) and over 3TB DDR4 memory providing some 9GB RAM per core and all in just 4U of rack space. It is connected through Mellanox 100GB ethernet networking to Supermicro Ultraand Supermicro Simply Double Servers,providing a CEPH Storage cluster with over 1.5PB (1500TB) of mechanical disk storage and more than 220TB of flash storage.
The addition of the cloud-computing platform to the CHPC service suite, is not only in-line with international standards of High Performance Computing (HPC) centres, but will assist the centre to support its users that are running virtual jobs in the cloud environment such as custom workflows, pleasingly parallel workloads and webhosting. Furthermore, the OpenStack service enables the CHPC to be a road-header for virtual HPC application provisioning and configuration in the future. “OpenStack provides a different offering for other users of HPC and this implementation is a step in the right direction to revolutionise HPC and drive towards converging platforms,” said CHPC Acting Director, Dr Happy Sithole.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 April 2020 15:59
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Given the unprecedented COVID19 challenge we are all facing, the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) is willing and ready to make compute resources available for dedicated COVID19 research.
Please note that wider cyber-infrastructure support beyond only compute resources, e.g. network, data transfer, data analyses, etc.) may also be possible through the CHPC NICIS partners, i.e. SANReN and DIRISA.
Researchers that are actively involved in direct or indirect research on COVID-19 (or planning to become involved), and who need access to resources to successfully pursue COVID19 research, are encouraged to contact the CHPC using details below.
Contacts:Dr Werner Janse van Rensburg, Research Manager - CHPC: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Helpdesk: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Last Updated on Saturday, 28 March 2020 09:51
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Forty-three Masters and Doctoral students from universities across South Africa have been accepted (selected from 80 applications) to be part of the CHPC/HartRAO School on Programming with Linux and Python at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO), a radio quiet zone dedicated to astronomy and the measurement and representation of the Earth using space techniques (Geodesy).
The week-long school (16 - 21 January 2017) is dedicated to building the capacity of science and engineering students in the basics of scientific programming using Linux (Ubuntu) and Python. The students have no prior knowledge of Linux and Python scripting.
HartRAO is the new home of one of the CHPC Sun/Dell cluster racks that has been decommissioned. It uses the infrastructure to support the African Very Long Base-line Interferometry (VLBI) project, which is part of an SKA project to build HPC in Africa.
By Nox Moyake
Last Updated on Thursday, 26 January 2017 11:26
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