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who required large n-way compute jobs. In addition to the two compute
clusters, at the and the STFC Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory, two “data clusters” were installed. These were dif-
ferent from the pure compute clusters in that they had a smaller number
of compute nodes (of the same specii cation as those at the compute clus-
ter sites), but were complemented by a larger amount of physical storage
and the provision of a high-performance Oracle-based database. These
nodes were intended for users who had larger dataset requirements than
compute power requirements, and for users looking to closely couple
large datasets with high-performance compute power, without the issues
of network performance affecting their ability to transfer large amounts of
data at sufi cient rates to meet their compute job requirements.
6.6.1
Phase 1 Configuration
Each compute facility comprised 64 dual CPU Intel 3.06 GHz nodes and
4 TB storage, while each data facility was coni gured with 20 dual CPU
Intel 3.06 GHz nodes and 18 TB i ber SAN storage, giving a total of 44 TB
of storage across all nodes available to users of the NGS.
6.6.2
Phase 2 Configuration
In phase 2 of the NGS, which started in October 2006, the four core sites
were upgraded so that each core site had an identical compute cluster,
while the two data sites at and the STFC
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory were additionally upgraded with
storage to provide a total of approximately 200 TB between the four core
sites. Phase 2 deployed a mixture of dual and quad core technology
using Opteron 64-bit processors. Forty-eight nodes with two dual-core
Opteron 64-bit processors, 8 GB RAM and eight nodes with four dual-
core Opteron 64-bit processors, 32 GB RAM and eight i le server nodes
were procured and deployed at each of the four core sites, giving a total
of 1024 cores. ClearSpeed technology was also deployed as a test to
enable users to experiment using such accelerator cards with their
research applications.
6.7
At the core of the NGS, the Support Center provides not only direct
support to end users, but operates and maintains a set of core “auxiliary”
services required to run the grid and to support user communities. The
services delivered by the NGS Support Center are to provide a framework
National Grid Service Support Center
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