Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network

1
Shared Hierarchical AcademicResearch Computing
Network
2
Vision
To establish a world-leading, multi-university
and college, interdisciplinary institute with
active academic-industry partnerships, enabling
forefront computational research in critical
areas of science, engineering and business.
3
Objectives

• Establish a computational environment to support
  advances in science, engineering and business
• Establish a test bed for exploiting new
  approaches in high performance computing using
  clusters
• Advance techniques for use of networks of
  clusters of computing elements move towards
  grid computing
• Provide a world class computational environment
  for training of computational specialists

4
Partners
Institutions University of Guelph McMaster
University University of Western Ontario
Wilfrid Laurier University University of
Windsor Fanshawe College Sheridan College
Industry Compaq Quadrics Supercomputing
World Platform Computing Nortel Networks Bell
Canada Hewlett Packard
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Computing Infrastructure

• Beowulf Clusters
• McMaster (112 cpus), running Tru64
• Guelph (108 cpus), running Linux
• Western (144 and 48 cpus), running Linux
• Development clusters (8 processors) at Windsor
  and Wilfrid Laurier
• All machines have 1 GB of RAM per cpu.
• Most cpus are 833Mhz Alpha processors.
• 48-cpu system at Western and McMaster cluster use
  667 MHz Alpha processors.
• Two 16-cpu shared-memory machines coming soon.
• Three of the eleven Canadian supercomputers that
  appear in the November 2001 Top 500 list of the
  worlds fastest supercomputers belong to
  SHARCNET.
• The largest SHARCNET cluster (Greatwhite at
  UWO) is the fastest supercomputer operated by a
  university in Canada.

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Networking Infrastructure

• Networking within clusters
• Quadrics high-speed interconnects within each of
  larger clusters
• Gigabit Ethernet for TCP communication
• Optical networking (DWDM) between UWO clusters
  (144 and 48 processors)
• Only computational traffic
• Under construction for completion in late
  January, 2002.
• Regional computational power grid under
  development
• Job management software
• City-to-city bandwidth

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SHARCNET Computational Grid
GUELPH
WLU 8
NEW PARTNERS
108
FANSHAWE 4
UWO
MAC
48
112
SHERIDAN 6
148
WINDSOR 8
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SHARCNET Research Fellowships
Table 1 Summary of SHARCNET Fellowship Programs

• See www.sharcnet.ca for instructions and
  application form
• Next deadline February 28, 2002