NSF grant awarded. Thus, this is a "go" as of August 2013.

Next steps

• Meet to review all options and confirm desired direction and expected timing.
• Review resources. Xiao-Qiu Ye has cluster experience, including set-up.

Draft idea

• Create a stand-along cluster using new hardware ($25K for minimum of 3 years operations (to confirm!). Thus, ~$8K/yr in hardware)).
  • Uses new OS and related cluster management software.
  • Install and configure necessary applications.
  • Enable NetID-based access, if possible (limit 2-3 days for a "go/no-go" decision on this functionality)
• Confirm old nodes can successfully be added to that new cluster.
• Migrate users and data to new cluster.
• Migrate old nodes to new cluster.

Unknowns

• Time for install of all necessary applications, many of which are new to Lulu. Then configure, verify, and de-bug new-installation-related issues.
• Whether NetID-based access will succeed. But note that this is not a do-or-die step, thus we will limit the duration of our investigation, with the hope that we can make this happen.

Tasks and estimated timing

• Lulu becomes available ~mid-September or early Oct, as of 8/21/13.
• See unknowns, above, which related to tasks which will obviously take additional time to accomplish.

Other provisioning models and related ideas

• We can walk through rates and scenarios, as appropriate.
• We can meet with CAC since they may be willing to do more with a commitment of $25K than is published with their $400 min. offering.
  • Brainstorming idea: Would they be willing to add hardware to CAC's RedCloud to get a buyer of that hardware a better cost and/or privileged access?

Buy cycles, on demand

Good for irregular high-performance demands, especially if have high peaks of need and long-lasting jobs.

• Buy cycles from CAC (RedCloud, minimum of $400 for 8585 core*hour
  • http://www.cac.cornell.edu/RedCloud/start.aspx
  • 12 cores available at any one time on one system.
    • Can access more than one system at a time, but systems are not linked.
  • $400 (minimum) buys you 8585 core*hours
    • This comes out to ~1 core for an entire year, non-stop.
  • For 96 cores, that's $38.4K for 1 year, non-stop.(They have a max of 96 cores <http://www.it.cornell.edu/about/projects/virtual/test.cfm>.)
    • 96 = 8 nodes, each with dual 6-core procs => 8 * 12 = 96
  • Or, for $25K, that's ~536,562 cores*hours.
    • $25K = $400*62.5 units. And each unit is 8585 core*hours, so 62.5 of them gets you 536,562.5 cores*hours.
    • That comes to ~178,854 core*hours/ yr for 3 years. Which is 20.8 core system running non-stop each year. (Compare to one hardware node, which has 12 cores.)

• Determine costs, processes, and trade-offs if use another cloud service, such as:
  • Amazon. Amazon AC3?
  • Google. Google Compute?

Host hardware at CAC rather than with ChemIT

Hosting costs at CAC is for basic: Expert initial configuration, then keep the system current, and keep the lights running. Other service charged hourly.

• http://www.cac.cornell.edu/services/hpcsystems.aspx
• http://www.cac.cornell.edu/services/rates/

Per the above rate calculator, the rate for 9 nodes (1 head node + 8 compute nodes) would be $8,291/yr. Or, $24,873 for 3 years for this service.

At current ChemIT rates, 9 nodes would be $321.84/yr. Or, $965.52 for 3 years of service.

• ChemIT rates are set by the CCB Computing Cmt and may change at any time. The rate for a group's single system (in a cluster or not) is $2.98/month, or $35.76/yr.

Table, related to our options