Cognitus-rg:meeting/2014-06-12-f2f

NeIP 2014-06-12 excerpt

Cognitus was discussed in the Nordic e-infrastructure provider directors' meeting 2014-06-12, as a startup meeting for the Cognitus reference group.

Time: 2014-06-12 09:00-15:00.
Venue: Meeting room Ludvig, Ground floor, Stensberggaten 25, 0170, Oslo.
Approved: 2104-06-26

Attending:

• Gudmund Høst, NeIC (chair)
• Joel Hedlund, NeIC (secretary)
• Jacko Koster, SNIC
• Arild Halsetrønning, Sigma
• Ebba Hvannberg, UoI

Invited:

• Pekka Lehtovuori, CSC replacing Kimmo Koski

Excused:

• Kimmo Koski, CSC
• Steen Pedersen, DeIC

Minutes

NeIP 14‐3 HPC collaboration

The NeIP discussed the Cognitus project for developing the scientific case for Nordic HPC collaboration, that was launched by the NeIC board on the 2014-06-11. If all practical issues can be sorted out the project will be led by Dr Robert Pennington (NCSA, Illinois), who led the NeIC evaluations of NHPC and Nordic use of PRACE.

The project directive proposes to have the NeIP directors constitute a reference group to the project, but does not detail the mandate of the reference group. As alignment with the national e-infrastructures is crucial for the success of the project, it was suggested that this should be a decision-making reference group that takes responsibility for the structure of the project work, and establishes support for the result in the national e-infrastructures.

The meeting suggested that in order for the report to gain maximal credibility, it should be signed by the represented communities of current and future HPC users, rather than the NeIC, NeIP or the author of the report.

The project directive also includes proposing implementation plans, however such plans cannot very well be signed by the user communities, suggesting that it might be suitable to separate these aspects of the work.

The mandate for the project is to describe the scientific case for Nordic HPC collaboration, and the project will thus need to take a comprehensive perspective, and leave it to implementors to decide what level is most suitable for meeting demands, be it national, Nordic, European or global. The European level is difficult to asses given current state and developments in the PRACE project, which may make it difficult for some countries to particiapte in the short term. It was suggested that the project should not assume any particular outcome at this stage.

When the NeIC board tasked NeIC with developing this scientific case, the NeIP were similarly tasked to develop a matching a visions document. Assuming there is a scientific case for Nordic HPC collaboration, it should be mapped onto the visions document. Especially, NeIP should take care to follow up on needs that are not within the mandate of NeIC, such as purchases of hardware.

It was argued that Nordic HPC collaboration should lead to reduced national funding to NeIP, if pooling resources could yield better cost-efficiency. However, if new science is enabled, the funding could just as well be increased. Pooling resources should not affect funding much, a factor 2 at most.