The HBP is an EU flagship project that seeks to “provide researchers worldwide with tools and mathematical models for sharing and analysing large brain data they need for understanding how the human brain works”. The HBP encompasses massively parallel applications in neuro-simulation, with advanced computational and data movement requirements way beyond current technological capabilities and is therefore driving innovation in HPC infrastructure.
As part of the R&D co-design, The HBP sub-contracted Cray to develop a pilot system next-generation supercomputer and software stack to address cutting-edge brain simulation and analysis activities. This system features a novel memory / storage hierarchy consisting of new memories, nvRAM and SSDs, accessed through Ceph over the Intel Omnipath interconnect. On the software side, Cray developed a coarse-grain data movement framework, the universal-data-junction, in support of this activity. This talk will describe how Cray, StackHPC and the HBP collaborated on the design project, demonstrating work-in-progress results of the HPC use-cases using the experimental hardware and software setup.
