Introduction

The computing center

The TGCC (Très Grand Centre de Calcul du CEA) is a high performance computing infrastructure aiming at hosting state-of-the-art supercomputers in France.

It is designed to:

  • Accommodate future high end computing systems.
  • Provide a communication and exhibition space for scientific events (conferences, seminars, training sessions, …).
  • Propose a flexible and modular facility for future evolution of HPC systems.

At the moment, the TGCC hosts Joliot-Curie, a 21 PFlops supercomputer that is part of GENCI (Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif). It represents the french contribution to the European PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) infrastructure.

The TGCC also hosts the CCRT (Centre de Calcul Recherche et Technologie, used by the CEA and its industrial partners). A full and up to date list of the CCRT industrial partners can be found on the ccrt website. The CCRT also provides the data storage and processing infrastructure for the France Génomique community, providing the highest level of competitiveness and performance in the production and analysis of genomic data.

The computing center architecture is data-centric. The computing nodes are connected to the private Lustre storage system for very fast I/O. And Global Lustre filesystems are shared between the different supercomputers. A hierarchical data storage system manages petabytes of data and is used for long term storage and archiving of results.

The computing center operates round the clock, except for scheduled maintenance periods when the teams update the hardware, firmware and software. The regular maintenance periods also allow a check of the general behavior and performance of the various supercomputers. Every year, a compulsory electrical maintenance requires a full shut down of the supercomputers for a longer period (3 days).

On-site support for the contractors, expert administration teams and an on-call duty system optimize the availability of the computing service. Guaranteeing access security and data confidentiality is a major preoccupation. A CEA IT security experts unit controls a security supervision system which monitors, detects and analyzes security alerts, enabling the security managers to react extremely rapidly.

Note

The Hotline is the single point of contact for any question or support request:

  • e-mail : please refer to internal documentation to get hotline email
  • phone : please refer to internal documentation to get hotline phone

Depending on its type, the demand will be transmitted to the appropriate team.

A users committee (COMUT) takes place every trimester to exchange between users and the TGCC staff. The representatives of each community can provide their feedback on the general usage of the computing center. Any big change or update is announced during the COMUT.

Training sessions are organized by CCRT staff on a regular basis.

Access to computing resources

Computing hours on the computing center are granted in a community-dependent fashion:

  • CCRT Partners automatically get a share of the computing resources.

  • French research teams can ask for resources through GENCI thanks to DARI calls: http://www.edari.fr

  • Scientists and researchers from academia and industry can ask for resources through PRACE. PRACE accesses are of 2 kinds:

    • Preparatory Access is intended for short-term access to resources, for code-enabling and porting, required to prepare proposals for Project Access and to demonstrate the scalability of codes. Applications for Preparatory Access are accepted at any time, with a cut-off date every 3 months.
    • Project Access is intended for individual researchers and research groups including multinational research groups. It can be used for 1-year production runs, as well as for 2-year or 3-year (Multi-Year Access) production runs.

    Project Access is subject to the PRACE Peer Review Process, which includes technical and scientific review. Technical experts and leading scientists evaluate the proposals submitted in response to the bi-annual calls. Applications for Preparatory Access undergo technical review only. For more information on how to apply for access to PRACE resources, go to http://www.prace-ri.eu/how-to-apply

Ongoing PRACE projects are monitored as much as possible. Therefore, we regularly ask for your feedback. Feel free to tell us about any issue you are facing.

Project or partner accounts are granted an amount of computing hours or a computing share. They must use the awarded hours on a regular basis. To ensure that: over-consumption lowers priority so jobs might need more time to access resources, and reaching an under-consumption limit may result in hours being removed from a project.