Youssef Ghorbal

About

We provide comprehensive HPC resources and services for Institut Pasteur researchers. Our missions are:

Install and operate HPC clusters

Provide computing resources including cutting edge computing facilities (GPUs for example):

manage servers and systems
Install new servers and handle maintenance operations
ensure resources availability and performance
ensure compliance with security policies

User support

clusters access and on-boarding
jobs monitoring
requests tracking
resource usage optimisation
documentation and procedures

Software management and development

install and maintain relevant software collections on all HPC clusters operated by the CF
install and maintain reference data catalogue (ex: Genomes data banks)
workflow/code acceleration profiling and optimisation
professional software development for the specific needs of some units.

Governance

The High Performance Computing Core Facility has dual affilation : IT Dept and DTPS. The core facility Steering Committee (SC) helps define, support and follow-up the strategic vision for the core facility (CF):

supports recruitment needs
large equipment purchase decisions
positioning of the facility in the national/international context
project arbitration
internal/external communication strategy.

Operation modes

The HPC2F operates in in open access mode. Every Institut Pasteur researcher is entitled to access HPC clusters. Resource allocation is based on a fair share principle: the more a given user uses resources the less it has priority for upcoming allocations. For strategic purposes a certain amount of dedicated resources can be allocated on a case-by-case basis. Access to HPC clusters is conditioned on a mandatory training session ensuring basic skills to use the systems. User support is provided via request tracking system. All Requests will be categorised and normally a followup is provided in 2 days The HPC2F is keeping users informed about maintenance and updates via a low-frequency mailing list, to which users are automatically subscribed.

Funding

Institut Pasteur internal funding provides common computing resources shared by all users (see Operation modes). It is also used to introduce new and experimental computing technologies. Sizing of common resources is established by the HPC2F under guidance of SC and UC (see Governance) Research teams needing dedicated resources are required to fund them out of their own budget. They can be selected from a catalogue (provided by the HPC2F), which is regularly updated. HPC2F assumes the cost of integration and operation, including networking and electricity costs. While the owner has highest priority on their hardware, it can be used by other researchers temporarily. Some requests and services of the CF will generate additional fees:

acquisition of the commercial software
large reference data installation (e.g. Gene databanks)
software development/optimisation (subject to special arrangements)

Training

New users are obliged to go through an e-Learning training session, where they learn to connect to the service, submit jobs and other necessary skills. Tailored training sessions can also be set up for advanced features:

efficient use of available resources
special hardware (GPU, bigmem etc)
checkpointing
intra- and inter-node parallelisation (OpenMP, MPI)

These on-demand training sessions can be organised with at least 6 weeks prior notice, with hands-on sessions on real user-provided projects. The HPC2F team can also contribute to other training sessions organised by other Institut Pasteur groups. We are part of the C2RT (Center for Technological Resources and Research), a center gathering the Technology and Service units (UTechS) and the technological core facilities of the campus. As such we follow the common guidelines and good practices.