Compute and Storage
Research Computing maintains a wide range of compute, data storage, and software resources to advance the diverse research goals of our faculty and partner collaborators. Resources are maintained by MSI staff who also provide training opportunities and tools to help investigators navigate these systems and manage their resources, students and partners. If you have questions about specific hardware and software needs, please contact us at [email protected].
High Performance Computing (HPC) systems are designed with high speed networks, high performance storage, GPUs, and large amounts of memory in order to support some of the most compute and memory intensive programs developed today. Currently, Research Computing has three main HPC service offerings, Mesabi, Mangi, and Agate. Mesabi is an HP Linux distributed cluster featuring a large number of nodes with leading edge Intel processors that are tightly integrated via a very high speed communication network. Mangi is a heterogeneous HPE cluster featuring nodes with leading edge AMD processors that are bound by a high speed Infininband network. Agate, Research Computing's newest supercomputing system, has over seven times the performance of the existing Mesabi cluster and a specialized GPU subsystem that further supports interactive applications with server-side GPU rendering, as well as interactive machine-learning workloads. Research Computing also offers dedicated computing options for purchase for researchers looking to utilize expertly managed dedicated hardware.
Research computing offers several different data storage solutions including Dedicated Primary Storage, Dedicated Second-Tier Storage, and Dedicated Archival Tier Storage. Dedicated Primary Storage is a high performance file system that can be accessed from all MSI computing systems. This storage includes nightly snap shots and backups, general management, and maintenance. Dedicated Second-Tier Storage is a high density storage platform, well suited for storing less frequently used data. Second-Tier storage is built on a Ceph storage cluster and may be accessed using the S3 interface and via Globus. Dedicated Archival Tier Storage is a high density tape storage platform accessible via an S3-like protocol, well suited for storing archival data. Third-Tier storage can also be accessed via Globus, and is suitable for many-terabyte data storage needs.
Research Computing offers many different software packages for use by researchers in various fields of research. Our software offerings cover a diverse range of analysis and data processing needs across the life sciences, physical sciences, geospatial analysis, and humanities. In addition to our software offerings, Research Computing consultants can typically offer support for software questions. Research Computing staff are experts in many software packages and can assist with questions or recommendations when it comes to software options and troubleshooting.