DEISA
Encyclopedia
The Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications (DEISA) is a European Union
supercomputer
project. It is made up of a consortium of eleven leading national supercomputing centres from seven Europe
an countries. It supports pan-European research by providing and operating a distributed supercomputing environment all over Europe and aims at delivering a turnkey operational solution for a future European high-performance computing
system. By extending the European collaborative environment in the area of supercomputing, DEISA follows the suggestions of ESFRI.
in FP6. The funding continued for the followup project DEISA2 in FP7.
on the European level and the NRENs on the national level. New associate partners will also be connected to this infrastructure.
to help computer scientists assess the performance of parallel supercomputer systems. The benchmark comprises a number of real applications codes taken from a wide range of scientific disciplines. All the codes are packaged into a structured framework allowing compilation, execution and analysis to be configured and carried out via a set of standard input files.
The codes were chosen as representative of the scientific projects performed on the DEISA supercomputers. The codes and associated datasets have been selected to be useful in benchmarking systems with peak performances ranging up to hundreds of teraflops, machines which
are more powerful than a desktop PC
by factors of tens of thousands.
The current suite contains codes relevant to astrophysics
, fluid dynamics
, climate modelling, bioscience
s, materials science
, fusion power
and fundamental particle physics
. It has been run by DEISA on a range of its own supercomputers and records of the results are kept for comparison. The DEISA benchmark was used by the EU-funded PRACE project as a starting point for their investigations of benchmarks for the next generation of petaflop supercomputers.
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
project. It is made up of a consortium of eleven leading national supercomputing centres from seven Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an countries. It supports pan-European research by providing and operating a distributed supercomputing environment all over Europe and aims at delivering a turnkey operational solution for a future European high-performance computing
High-performance computing
High-performance computing uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Today, computer systems approaching the teraflops-region are counted as HPC-computers.-Overview:...
system. By extending the European collaborative environment in the area of supercomputing, DEISA follows the suggestions of ESFRI.
History
The DEISA project started as DEISA1 in 2002 developing and supporting a pan-European distributed high performance computing infrastructure. The initial project was funded by the European CommissionEuropean Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
in FP6. The funding continued for the followup project DEISA2 in FP7.
Infrastructure
The DEISA infrastructure couples the eleven national supercomputing centres which form the DEISA consortium with a dedicated (mostly 10Gbit/s) network connection provided by GÉANT2GÉANT2
GÉANT2 is the seventh generation of pan-European research and education network, successor to the pan-European multi-gigabit research network GÉANT. The project within which the network is funded began officially on 1 September 2004, and is due to run for four years.The GÉANT2 network provides...
on the European level and the NRENs on the national level. New associate partners will also be connected to this infrastructure.
Principal partners
The 11 principal partners are:- Max Planck Gesellschaft, GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
- Bavarian Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesBavarian Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesThe Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledge within their subject...
, Germany - Barcelona Supercomputing CenterBarcelona Supercomputing CenterBarcelona Supercomputing Center , also known by the acronym BSC, is a public research center located in Barcelona, Spain. It hosts MareNostrum, Europe's 25th most powerful supercomputer as of November 2009....
, SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... - CINECACinecaCINECA is a non profit consortium, made up of 50 Italian universities, two National Research Centers, and the Ministry of University and Research , and was established in 1969 in Casalecchio di Reno, Bologna....
, ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... - CSC, Scientific Computing LtdCSC, Scientific Computing LtdCSC – IT Center for Science Ltd. provides IT support and modeling, computing and information services for academia, research institutes and companies in Finland. It is owned entirely by the Finnish state, administered by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and operated on a non-profit principle...
, FinlandFinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside... - European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
- Jülich Research CentreJülich Research CentreForschungszentrum Jülich GmbH is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and is one of the largest interdisciplinary research centres in Europe...
, Germany - Institut du Développement et des Ressources en Informatique Scientifique (CNRS), FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
- Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum AmsterdamStichting Academisch Rekencentrum AmsterdamStichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam is a Dutch foundation that provides supercomputers, colocation, networks and high-end visualisation to academic institutions...
, NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... - Edinburgh Parallel Computing CentreEPCCEPCC is a supercomputing centre based at the University of Edinburgh. Since its foundation, its stated mission has been to accelerate the effective exploitation of novel computing throughout industry, academia and commerce.The University has supported high-performance computing services since 1982...
, United Kingdom - High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS), University of StuttgartUniversity of StuttgartThe University of Stuttgart is a university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized in 10 faculties....
, Germany
Associate partners
The four associate partners are:- CEA, Computing Complex, Bruyères-le-ChâtelBruyères-le-ChâtelBruyères-le-Châtel is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.-History:A nunnery was founded at Bruyères-le-Châtel by a noblewoman named Clotilde...
, France - JSCC, Joint Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of SciencesRussian Academy of SciencesThe Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent... - Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), MannoMannoManno is a municipality in the district of Lugano in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland.-History:Manno is first mentioned in 1184.In 1298, the Bishop of Como owned estates in the village. In 1335, the village divided into two sections, Manno superiore and Manno inferiore, both of which belonged...
, SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition.... - The Royal Institute of Technologies - Center for Parallel Computers, (KTH), StockholmStockholmStockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
Deisa Benchmark Suite
DEISA has produced a packaged benchmark suiteBenchmark (computing)
In computing, a benchmark is the act of running a computer program, a set of programs, or other operations, in order to assess the relative performance of an object, normally by running a number of standard tests and trials against it...
to help computer scientists assess the performance of parallel supercomputer systems. The benchmark comprises a number of real applications codes taken from a wide range of scientific disciplines. All the codes are packaged into a structured framework allowing compilation, execution and analysis to be configured and carried out via a set of standard input files.
The codes were chosen as representative of the scientific projects performed on the DEISA supercomputers. The codes and associated datasets have been selected to be useful in benchmarking systems with peak performances ranging up to hundreds of teraflops, machines which
are more powerful than a desktop PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
by factors of tens of thousands.
The current suite contains codes relevant to astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, fluid dynamics
Fluid dynamics
In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
, climate modelling, bioscience
BioScience
BioScience is a peer-reviewed monthly sometimes daily scientific journal that is published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences . The content is written and edited for accessibility to researchers, educators, and students alike...
s, materials science
Materials science
Materials science is an interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. This scientific field investigates the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. It incorporates...
, fusion power
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
and fundamental particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
. It has been run by DEISA on a range of its own supercomputers and records of the results are kept for comparison. The DEISA benchmark was used by the EU-funded PRACE project as a starting point for their investigations of benchmarks for the next generation of petaflop supercomputers.