Advanced computing (High Performance Computing – HPC) provides more resources and better performance than ordinary computers, in order to solve complex engineering and scientific problems, while contributing to technological developments in several areas, such as healthcare, environment and natural sciences. Actually, these services have been expanding and diversifying the range of parallel and Big Data applications that benefit from the advanced computing model. Nevertheless, this expansion leads to an increasingly complex management of HPC infrastructures, resulting in efficiency losses and significant expenses.
The BigHPC project – The Management Framework for Consolidated Big Data and High-Performance Computing, developed by INESC TEC’s and UMinho’s High Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab) aims to create an integrated platform that favours the efficient and low-cost management of advanced computing centres, particularly concerning parallel and Big Data applications.
“The results of this project will help improving the competitiveness of HPC centres and companies that own data centres, through a more efficient computational resources management that will reduce financial costs and improve the performance of the advanced computing services provided. Consequently, it will be possible to better the experience of users who resort to said services, so they can obtain results from their data analysis more quickly. For instance, these benefits will be crucial to accelerate scientific discoveries in different fields i.e. healthcare (genomics, virology, etc.) and the environment (prevention of natural disasters). Moreover, the outcomes will help improving the analysis and decision-making competences of companies that use HPC services to support these and other industrial processes, thus improving the competitiveness of the national industry”, said João Paulo, researcher at HASLab.
The technology will be tested at MACC and TACC
MACC, the first supercomputer operating in Portugal (established last year in Riba d’Ave) and the TACC – Texas Advanced Computing Center (Austin), one of the world’s largest academic supercomputing centres, will validate this technology through real cases and pilot tests, which will take place in the centres’ facilities. “This project will also be important to reinforce MACC status as a key research centre in Europe”, concluded João Paulo.
Wavecom, the company in charge of promoting the project, will market the developed solution. “Advanced computing centres or companies owning private data centres can resort to this platform, in order to advance their computing and storage resources, and improve the users’ experience”, said Bruno Antunes, researcher at Wavecom.
Wavecom leads the BigHPC project, in partnership with INESC TEC, the Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics (LIP), the MACC, the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and the TACC. According to the estimates, the project will last until March 2023.
The project is funded by the COMPETE 2020 Programme and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) (€1.922.000,00), in partnership with UT Austin (via the UT Austin Portugal Program) – within the scope of the initiative “Go Portugal – Global Science and Technology Partnerships Portugal”.
For more information about the project, please visit https://bighpc.wavecom.pt/
The researcher mentioned in this news piece is associated with INESC TEC.
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