Description
At the time of the project, between e-Infrastructures, ESFRI wass identified in FP7 High Performance Computing as a strategic priority for Europe. The cost of the related RI has been steadily increasing as well, in so much as, today, the most advanced computing facilities can be conceived only on trans-national or even continental basis, with a joint contribution of a number of different member states. A paradigmatic example is represented by PRACE. In order to have the highest return from such massive economical and political commitment, HPC resources must be exploited at the highest level. Their access must be effective and capillary; their services must allow more and more people to use the resources.
Homogeneous and effective selection and evaluation procedures for HPC users and related research projects must be defined, to guarantee the excellence of the scientific objectives and the suitability to international research programs and main scientific development streamlines. Cooperation and coordination between the HPC stakeholders was necessary to define the path-forward to the next generation of computing services.
HPC-World addressed these issues, with the objective of identifying a standard set of criteria and procedures and an associated methodology to drive the largest HPC e-Infrastructure initiatives in the deployment of services, in the allocation of resources and in the support to users’ access. In particular, the project will model its activities and outcomes on PRACE, in order to offer a mature and effective methodology, to manage its access activities and resources allocation procedures, providing the instrument to deploy and exploit promptly, and with tuned policies and strategies, the available infrastructures.
The involvement of non-European partners strongly improved and enriched, the outcomes of the project and strengthened the international cooperation between the European HPC RI and similar RIs from other regions, promoting synergies beyond the continental boundaries.
