University Research Computing Program
The College of Engineering completed a multi-year effort to centralize related compute and storage resources for all departments within the college. With their requirements and budget well-defined, Computing Services, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and the Electrical and Computer Engineering IT Services group will join forces to design and deploy an overall system and set of services to meet the requirements. Equipped with the successes, lessons learned, and opportunities from this experience, we will partner with the other colleges and key stakeholder departments, most notably the Office of The Vice-President for Research (OVPR), to establish and develop a university-wide Central Research Computing Program.
Expected Outcomes
- Research computing program established and adopted by colleges and research stakeholders throughout the university
- Standard set for deploying research computing hardware in a secure and stable university leased space with adequate cooling and electrical capacity
- High-speed network provisioned to allow researchers to directly access resources, services, and university-licensed software on the compute cluster with CMU Andrew ID credentials
- Sustainable software delivery, technical support, and financial support structures are created and improved over timeestablished
- Regular review process established for continual evaluation and improvement
Timeline and Milestones
Phase 1: College of Engineering Central Compute
FY22 — FY23
- Create technical architecture, and deployment plan based on defined requirements
- Collaborate on the creation of sustainable support and financial structures
- Deploy hardware, define software readiness plans, and begin onboarding early adopter projects (summer of 2022)
- Define and implement resource allocation policies for the onboarding of additional research adopters and their efforts (fall 2022)
Phase 2: University Program Development
FY23 — FY24
- Develop an advisory group for campus activities with OVPR, faculty researchers, and PSC
representation - Under the advisement of the advisory group, gather related requirements to
create a suite of service offerings to meet the campus needs - Assist in establishing any financial models required to provide the services
- Establish a review process to measure the success and impact of the program