Overview

Background

The Roslin Institute requires a research computing and data infrastructure to provide computational processing and long term data storage for their genome analyis research. They have grant funding to pay for the equipment required. This project is to procure and configure the new hardware as a dedicated extension to  the Eddie service. Equipment must be delivered to the University before the end of 2015, and be available for service in Q1 2016.

Scope

• Specify an extension to the Eddie service which is tuned to the requirements of the researcher's workloads.
• Specify an extension to the DataStore service, suitable for use as a backing file store for the Eddie cluster as well as for general purpose access, with sufficient capacity for the expected data holdings for the research groups over the next 3-5 years, as per their specification.
• Procure the agreed specification, with equipment delivered to the University before the 1st January 2016.
• Configure and install the compute extension as part of the Eddie cluster before 1st April 2016.
• Configure and install the data extension as part of the DataStore service before 1st April 2016.

Not in scope:

• Migration of users from existing computational and data services
• Integration with other computational and data infrastructure other than Eddie and DataStore

Objectives

We will deliver the new service by:

• ensuring the hardware installed is integrated with the Eddie service, and available to nominated Roslin researchers
• ensuring stakeholders are informed of key milestones of the project
• ensuring we produce the documentation and guidance that researchers and users of the service require
• ensuring that the IT support team for the Roslin Institute have sufficient support, guidance and documentation to operationally support the researchers

Deliverables

• Eddie extension ready for use by nominated Roslin researchers: MUST
• DataStore capacity extension available for use by nominated Roslin researchers: MUST
• Documentation for users and IT support staff: MUST

Benefits

• More powerful computational capability available to researchers in Roslin.
• Increased data storage capacity available to researchers in Roslin.
• Computational capabilities secured for Roslin researchers until July 2020.
• Easy access to both the institutional capabilities and the Roslin extension capabilities available to researchers within Roslin.
• Simpler and more efficient support and operations for Roslin research computing and data infrastructures
• Common support, training and documentation for research computing services used by researchers in Roslin
• Less power consumption for the amount of computational and data capabilities provided.

Success Criteria

• Equipment specifed, procured within budget, and delivered before the 1st January 2016.
• Roslin Eddie extension available for end of March 2016 for nominated Roslin users.
• Roslin DataStore extension available for end of March 2016, integrated with the DataStore and Eddie services.
• Roslin users experiencing better performance compared to their current dedicated computational services.
• Support team fully trained.