GRNET High-Performance Computing – Pilot Call for Proposals

Introduction
The Greek Research and Technology Network (GRNET S.A.) opens the first Pilot Call for Proposals, for project access to the newly installed national HPC system named ARIS (https://hpc.grnet.gr). The call is addressed to scientists and researchers that work in academic and research institutions in Greece. The project proposals should address open research topics in all scientific fields. Via this call GRNET S.A. makes it possible for scientists in Greece to have access to the national supercomputing facility, ARIS.
Access will be awarded for a maximum period of 6 months, beginning on the 25th of September 2015.
Scope and criteria of access
The first pilot call enables researchers from Greece to obtain access to the powerful national High Performance Computing system. Project Proposals must be of high scientific and social value.
The criteria for the evaluation of projects for accessing the available resources will be:
 

  • Scientific Excellence
  • Impact of the proposed research
  • The need for HPC resources
  • Maturity and experience of the principal investigator and his/her team
  • Feasibility of the project based on a technical evaluation and the availability of resources
  • A limited number of applications will be selected based on the project proposal demand and the availability of resources of ARIS.

 
Eligibility
Eligible applicants are scientists affiliated with academic or research institutions in Greece.
Applicants should commit to the usage of the resources that will be allocated to them, as well as to providing reports of their work based on the proposed time schedule (see below). Further to that, scientists should acknowledge the use of the GRNET’s HPC facility in all publications presenting results obtained from using the allocated resources.
Available System – ARIS
ARIS is based on IBM’s NeXtScale platform, incorporating the Intel ® Xeon ® E5 v2 processors, (Ivy Bridge) and it provides computational power that reaches 180TFlops (trillion floating point operations per second). With a total of 426 compute nodes, it offers more than 8500 processor cores (CPU cores) interconnected through FDR Infiniband network, a technology offering very low latency and high bandwidth. In addition, the system will offer about 1 Petabyte (quadrillion bytes) of raw storage, based on the IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS). The system software allows developing and running scientific applications and provides several pre-installed compilers, scientific libraries and popular scientific application suites.
Around 15 Million core hours of ARIS will available for this call.
Accepted projects are expected to have the following scalability:
 

  • Very large projects: > 100 nodes
  • Large projects: > 50 nodes
  • Medium Projects: > 12 nodes
  • Small projects: 4 – 12 nodes

 
The number of accepted projects will depend on the technical and scientific merit of the proposals and the availability of resources. Large projects are expected to be assigned a maximum of 3 Million core hours. A larger number of requested core hours will require elaborate and well documented justification.
Application process
All proposals should be submitted electronically via the following link:
https://goo.gl/4RLbgy
GRNET’s HPC access team will be available to answer questions while the call is open. You can contact the access team by sending e-mail to: hpc-access .AT lists.grnet.gr.
Deadline for submission of proposals to the pilot call is Thursday the 17th of September 2015, at 18:00 CET.
Process details and deadlines
After the close of the call at the 17th of September 2015 at 18:00 CET the pilot call organizing committee will validate the applications and in cases clarifications are needed, those have to be provided by the 21st of September 2015.
The proposals will undergo a technical review and a lightweight scientific peer review in order to determine the suitability of running the applications in the requested system. The review committee comprises HPC experts from GRNETs HPC operations and application support teams. Reviewers are allowed to ask applicants for clarifications.
The pilot call access committee comprising of GRNET’s personnel, does the prioritization of applications based on the criteria set in Section “Scope and criteria of access” of this document.
The applicants will be notified of the final results of the evaluation. Successful applicants will receive further details regarding ARIS and the process to obtain user accounts.
Important Dates:
 

  • Opening date: 31st July 2015.
  • Closing Date: 17th September 2015, at 18:00 CET.
  • Question to applicants by organizing committee (if needed): 18th of September 2015
  • Clarification provided by applicants if needed: 21st of September 2015
  • Allocation decision: 25th September 2015
  • Allocation Start Date of awarded proposals: 25th of September 2015
  • Allocation end date of award: 31st March 2016
  • Final report from successful projects: 30th April 2016.

 
Contacts
For any queries related to applications please contact: hpc-access .AT lists.grnet.gr
Future Calls
GRNET is in the process of organizing further calls for access to the system based on the access principles presented in https://hpc.grnet.gr/access_policy/
Those calls will be announced by the end of 2015 and will include production, preparatory, development and training access.
About
The procurement installation and operation of the GRNET HPC system is co-funded by the Operational Programme “Attica” / National Strategic Reference Framework and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
GRNET
GRNET provides Internet connectivity, high-quality e-Infrastructures and advanced services to the Greek Educational, Academic and Research community.
Through its high-speed, high-capacity infrastructure that spans across the entire country, GRNET interconnects more than 150 institutions, including all universities and technological institutions, as well as many research institutes and the public Greek School Network.
GRNET operates the National High Performance Computing system (a Tier-1 in the European HPC ecosystem) and offers user and application support services, that provide Greek scientists with the computing infrastructure and expertise they need for their research enabling them to perform large scale simulations.
GRNET offers innovative IaaS cloud computing services to the Greek and global research & education communities: “ ~okeanos” and “okeanos global” allow users to create multi-layer virtual infrastructure and instantiate virtual computing machines, local networks to interconnect them, and a reliable storage space within seconds, with few, simple mouse clicks.
GRNET aims at contributing towards Greece’s Digital Convergence with the EU, by supporting the development and encouraging the use of e-Infrastructures and services. The right and timely planning strategies, together with the long experience and know-how of its people, guarantee the continuation and enhancement of GRNET’s successful course.
Greek Research and Technology Network – Networking Reserach and Education:
grnet.gr, hpc.grnet.gr

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