The document summarizes Florida State University's Research Computing Center (RCC) and its Sky virtual cluster system. The RCC provides high performance and high throughput computing, data storage, visualization, and consulting services to FSU researchers. Sky is an OpenStack-based virtual machine system that allows researchers to customize computing resources and run applications not supported by the main RCC systems, such as software requiring root access or the Windows operating system. Several FSU research groups currently use Sky for tasks such as data dissemination, software development, and hosting bioinformatics tools.

1. Rearch Computing Center:
Sky – FSU’s Virtual Cluster
November 20, 2013
Dell Panel
SC13, Denver Colorado

2. Florida State University
§ Public University located in Tallahassee,
Florida
§ 15 colleges, 39 centers/facilities/institutions,
medical programs, and more than 300
programs
§ Home to 7,000 faculty and staff serving over
40,000 students, ~30,00 of whom are
undergraduates
§ Home to National High Magnetic Field
Laboratory

3. Research Computing Center
§
§
§
§
§
§
High Performance Computing (HPC)
Advanced Networks
§ Distributed Memory (MPI
framework)
§ Shared Memory (OpenMP
framework)
HTC
High Throughput Computing (HTC)
Diverse storage requirements
DB
2°
Web portals and scientific databases
1°
HPC
and
storage
storage
Visualization (Vis) and Interactive
Web
Computing
Vis and
Advanced Research Networks
SMP
interactive
§ To support workflows and
instrumentation

4. Research Computing Center
Services (rcc.fsu.edu)
High Performance Computing
§ (8,000 Plus cores)
High Throughput Computing
§ Condor Cluster (Over 1,200
cores)
Interactive Computing &
Visualization
§ Spear Cluster (296 CPU
cores; 7,168 gpGPU cores)
Virtual Machines
§ SKY system (Capacity for 90
VMs)
§ Cloud-based system based on
OpenStack
Data Storage
§ HPC storage (Panasas)
§ Interactive storage (Lustre)
§ Second tier storage
§ Backup
§ Local and regional data
sharing
§ Storage for cloud-based
systems
Consulting and Planning

5. What is “SKY”

6. Why Would You Use “SKY”?
§ Need root access on a system
6
§
§
§
Evaluate new software
Run software not supported by the RCC
Run apps on Microsoft Windows platform
§ Building a science portal
§
§
A web interface to your RCC data or RCC
cycles
A webs to share your data and results
§ Computing resources, but not HPC or HTC
§
Many projects need computing, just not on a
large-scale (e.g., dedicated matlab instance)

7. What “SKY” is NOT
§ It is not for general web hosting
§ Robust high-performance or highthroughput
§ Available to all faculty and staff (buy-in
only for now)

8. Mash Resources the Way You
Need Them
12
vCPU
Option 1
24gb
120gb
24
GB
RAM
Option 2
4gb
20gb
4gb
20gb
4gb
20gb
120
GB
6
IPs
Option 3
etc…
4gb
20gb
4gb
20gb
4gb
20gb
12gb
80gb
12gb
40gb

9. Sample of SKY Tenants
Tenant
Func*on/Unit
Storm
Risk
Center
Data
disseminaAon/College
of
Business
Center
for
Family
Violence
Data
disseminaAon/College
of
Social
Work
iDigBio
CI
development/College
of
Com
and
Info
Mascot
Protein
idenAficaAon
SoMware/College
of
Med
ARF
Data
Sharing/AntarcAc
Research
Facility
Genomaize
Analyses
and
Data
sharing/Dept.
of
Biology
TreeSpace
BioinformaAcs
tools/ScienAfic
CompuAng
AWTY
BioinformaAcs
tools/ScienAfic
CompuAng
PAUP
BioinformaAcs
tools/ScienAfic
CompuAng

10. Questions and Comments
10
§ Jim Wilgenbusch:
wilgenbusch@fsu.edu
§ More info:
§
§
§
§
http://rcc.fsu.edu
https://www.facebook.com/fsurcc
https://twitter.com/fsurcc
http://www.youtube.com/user/fsurcc