University of Manchester IT news - Winter 2013

IT news Issue 3 – Winter 2013

Start of year • Wireless rollout • Network upgrade Student employability • Customer engagement New EPS websites • My Manchester • Lync • Sustainability Computer Science updates • IT Services for Research

IT Services welcomes

Gerry Pennell Welcome to the third issue of IT news, the publication which highlights the latest activities and innovations from IT Services.

I joined the University in the Summer so I am currently spending most of my time establishing where the University is in its use of IT and how the IT Services department is operating. I will no doubt want to make some changes but it is too early to be specific. Watch this space! In the meantime, I’d like to acknowledge the contribution of Paul Hopkins who acted as Interim Director in the interval between my predecessor’s departure and my arrival.

It is also worth saying that not only am I new to the University, I am also new to Higher Education with a background in a variety of other sectors; government, financial services, retail and so on. Most recently, I was CIO for the London 2012 Olympics which, I think it is fair to say, was a very different environment. So bear with me whilst I climb the learning curve!

In the meantime it is fascinating to see the many different ways in which IT is assisting staff and students in their work and the very wide range of applications in which IT is involved. It is equally clear that there are plenty more opportunities for IT to assist the organisation in achieving its ambitions.

In this issue, you can find out about a range of items including: •

Start of year........................................................ 1

•

Wireless rollout................................................. 2

•

Network upgrade.............................................. 3

•

Student employability...................................... 4

•

Customer engagement................................. 5

•

New EPS websites......................................6 – 7

•

My Manchester................................................. 8

•

Lync – instant messaging .............................. 9

•

Sustainability...........................................10 – 11

•

Computer Science updates........................12

•

IT Services for Research......................15 – 17

Finally, to find out more about us, please do visit www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus

Gerry Pennell Director of IT

start of year 1 Welcome 2013 has been IT Services’ most successful in terms of delivering our messages to students and informing them of the services and facilities available to support them during their studies.

The Welcome Fair hosted approximately 6,000 visitors during two days and IT Services handed out over 200kg of sweets in a ‘Pixel Mix’ bag which also contained key IT literature. We secretly enclosed ‘Golden Tickets’ in five of these leaflets at random. Any student fortunate enough to find one won an iPad, Kindle or Amazon voucher.

You can see two of our winners below.

Behind the scenes around 14,800 students went through the IT signup process with 70% of students having signed up by the start of September and approximately 35,300 students completing registration by the end of September.

Many colleagues worked hard delivering 20 introductory IT talks to schools involving nearly 4,000 students.

Finally, a big thank you to all staff who got involved during Welcome 2013, helping to support systems and services throughout this very busy period, and also a huge thank you to all the IT support staff who dealt with queries from staff and students.

6,000 visitors 200kg of sweets 20 talks to 3,957 students 35,300

completed registration Lucky Luke Stephens – who won an iPad.

Arpan Aluja – delighted Kindle winner.

2 WiFi

Improving University WiFi As you may have noticed, work on the IT Services wireless rollout project has started. The project aims to improve the wireless infrastructure across the University campus, significantly increasing the number of wireless access points. This will provide and improve coverage in lecture theatres, offices, halls of residences and public spaces.

A budget of ÂŁ5.8 million was approved by the Information Systems Sub-Committee and the Capital Planning Sub-Committee for this project.

In addition to working with our colleagues in Estates, we will be continuing this project over the next twelve months with the companies Aruba Networks and Pervasive Networks.

A large number of the older wireless access points have now been replaced.

The upgraded system will increase the bandwidth and capacity available on the wireless network and provide a flexible management system for the IT Services Network Team. Additionally, the project allows us to roll out eduroam coverage throughout the wireless network.

mobile app, which allows you to connect with The University of Manchester wherever you are on campus, and the Manchester Medical School iPad project, both of which featured in previous issues of IT News.

Using eduroam means that the use of mobile devices becomes more convenient. Eduroam does not time out, and there is no need to log in each time you connect to the network once it has been set up. Eduroam is also more secure than the UoM_WiFi network, so there are fewer restrictions in place.

As the University campus is a mixture of building ages and styles, there are several factors which need to be considered. We are working with the council planning team to ensure that the wireless equipment can be installed into the University’s listed buildings. Our colleagues in Estates are ensuring that the rollout is fully planned, and that appropriate health and safety concerns are taken into account.

Other projects that will benefit from the improved wireless coverage and connectivity include the iManchester

The wireless rollout project is taking place in separate phases, and work has begun on Phase 1 of this rollout.

Due to the scale of the project, this is not something that can be achieved overnight.

The latest information about the progress of the project can be found on the IT Services website: www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/projects/wireless/

network 3

Upgrading the network

The University network supports connectivity across campus, linking buildings, data centres, halls of residence, providing connectivity to other universities and of course the internet.

Typically, desktop computers are connected at up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps), buildings connected at 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) and the ‘core’ network operates at 20 Gbps.

In response to feedback from the Research Community we’re building a network that will allow faster speeds to the computer desktop.

This will also support future increases in the use of video and voice calls both for teaching and entertainment purposes.

IT Services have invested in the latest and most powerful network equipment from Cisco Systems to replace the older routers on the network. This will result in the core network speed increasing to multiples of 40 Gbps. Most links between key points will operate at 80Gbps!

The network is being upgraded in stages.

Whilst there will be some network downtime, this will be minimal. Staff and students will be told well in advance when the upgrades are taking place.

The Computational Shared Facility (CSF) and Research Data Service (RDS) will benefit greatly from this upgrade.

Find out more about the CSF and RDS on page 16.

Other ongoing changes will result in a more secure and resilient network.

It is hoped these changes will complete before the middle of 2014.

4 student employability

Coming full circle – a recent graduate’s view of student internship This is the first of our articles featuring students working within IT Services.

Future editions will cover topics such as; working whilst studying and one-off pieces of work in specialised areas.

IT Services currently employs over 70 students and recent graduates. They form an integral part of the team delivering services around Research, Training, PC lifecycles, Communications and Marketing and Hall of Residence support.

As a recent Manchester graduate myself, I thought it would be interesting to have a chat with other students and graduates currently working for IT Services and get their impressions of the IT environment and their experience of transition from student to staff.

research colleagues. I myself am based within the Communications and Marketing team and enjoy the buzz of the many different activites I get to be involved with.

It was great to hear so much positivity from people who have been at both ends of IT Services; as students using IT for studies to being part of the team, helping to keep IT Services moving forward. We all agreed that although many of us had not imagined working for IT Services we couldn’t be happier with the constant variety of opportunities, strength of the University support network and the level of real responsibility we have in each of our roles.

Danielle – IT Training assistant

Joe – Mimas research assistant

Our University employs many new Manchester graduates each year as part of the Manchester Graduate Internship Programme (MGIP). This is a perfect opportunity for recent graduates to gain experience of working in a professional environment in a field that interests them.

Between us we have roles in very different areas within IT Services, areas that before working here we never knew existed!

Danielle is currently working in the training team designing e-training for many of the our University systems, Matthew gets to see every corner of campus while working as an IT Lifecycles and recycling administrator while Joe and Richard work with the Research Applications and Collaboration team to support our

Tori (me) – Communications and marketing assistant

Richard – Research computing assistant

Matthew – IT equipment lifecycle administrator

customer engagement 5

Talk to us This June we were proud to launch our ‘Talk to us’ page – an online space where students and staff can leave feedback, comments, complaints or thanks on any aspect of IT Services.

This comes through to the Communications and Marketing team and is logged, answered and personally followed up by a member of the team.

The ‘Talk to us’ page is a useful way for us to engage with you and hear about your experiences using IT and find out directly how we can improve our services.

If you’d like to leave feedback visit: www.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/talktous

Student consultations As with any organisation, it is important to constantly measure our services up to the needs and expectations of those who use them.

IT Services consults staff and students to ensure that our services meet the needs of our customers and to find out what changes we can make to improve them.

Over the past year we have made changes to the services we offer as a direct result of these consultations.

These include improving computer cluster and printing facilities in response to feedback, trials of a mobile printing service and piloting Apple Mac desktop computers.

6  new faculty websites

Engineering and Physical Sciences To attract undergraduate students, school websites have become key to marketing and recruitment strategies.

A good site should engage applicants, be simple to navigate and provide relevant information quickly and easily.

Within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, original School web sites were often maintained on a best efforts basis by interested parties within each school. In early 2012, it was agreed by the Senior Leadership Team that the Faculty would revitalise all of its School sites with an initial focus on undergraduate student recruitment.

Web Project Board A Web Project Board was established with key representation from each School and work began on the sites in March 2012 with the Web Services and External Relations Teams working with each school to look at key messages, site structure and navigation, search engine optimisation, auditing of existing content and trialing of new site designs.

Whilst work with the schools was on-going, technical work was carried out producing site designs that would deliver a responsive experience for any device (desktop, mobile, tablet) and the necessary technical infrastructure was built to support client and server functionality.

Content Management system (Terminal Four – T4) It was decided from the start that the Faculty would use the new version of the centrally provided and maintained, content management system (T4). Input of new content could not begin until the site design was approved and then translated into T4 site templates and styles.

First site (SEAES) goes live After some initial teething troubles, work on delivery of the first site began in July 2012. In September 2012, the new look School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences website (SEAES) was launched to very good reviews and the school has reported a 125% increase in applications during the first recruitment cycle post launch.

Each subsequent launch became easier, as the team refined the process and design, following lessons learnt from the previous site launch and ensuring each site produced was tailored to the specific business requirements of the school.

School of Physics and Astronomy last site to be created With the last site to roll off the production line (Physics) www.physics.manchester.ac.uk, the team had become very efficient at the process of site creation.

new faculty websites 7

New school websites launched!

Websites (in order of release) School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences www.seaes.manchester.ac.uk School of Materials www.materials.manchester.ac.uk School of Chemistry www.chemistry.manchester.ac.uk

We’re very pleased to report that all Schools have acknowledged that their new site represents a significant improvement on their old versions, with positive feedback from colleagues within the schools, students, potential students, parents and collaborators.

Now that the last site has gone live, the team has been reconfigured into two sub-teams – one team to continue to proactively drive improvements of the new sites and another to look at research information development to support our REF response.

The Faculty thanks all of those involved in the roll out of the web sites for their hard work and contribution to delivering some industry leading sites and the team look forward to developing and improving these sites further, in the future.

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering www.mace.manchester.ac.uk School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science www.ceas.manchester.ac.uk School of Mathematics www.maths.manchester.ac.uk School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering www.eee.manchester.ac.uk School of Computer Science www.cs.manchester.ac.uk School of Physics and Astronomy www.physics.manchester.ac.uk

8 My Manchester

My Manchester Our students have been enjoying My Manchester as their online entry point to University systems for quite some time – now staff (including postgraduate research students) will be able to experience similar benefits with an improved online ‘hub’ of their own.

Welcome, to My Manchester for staff My Manchester for staff offers easy access to a variety of applications and tools to help you day to day, such as BlackBoard, ePROG and MyView (to name only a few!)

It also provides simple searching so you can enter a single term to find information from a variety of systems such as Staff Directory, Library, StaffNet and the University Documents System. It essentially collates the features from the current Staff Portal, adds some new applications and key information currently accessed via StaffNet then brings this together, as one.

This is just the beginning however, as the underlying framework also provides a substantial platform on which to build further personalised and task oriented functionality, so offers great potential for future development.

A pilot for My Manchester for staff was conducted earlier in the year with volunteers from across the University, where feedback was collated on the initial design and additional requirements gathered. Several improvements were made and the service is now in the final stages of User Acceptance Testing.

My Manchester for staff will be released as a replacement to the current Staff Portal in December to: • Chemical Engineering and Analytical Sciences • Social Sciences • Institute of Population Health • Directorate of Human Resources

Wider rollout across the remainder of the University will then begin in early 2014.

…not just for students

Lync – instant messaging 9

Messaging in an instant Over the next academic year, we are planning to add extra features and major upgrades to the University instant message client - Lync.

At present, the system is mainly used by staff for instant messaging/chat features.

It is hoped that the project will encourage staff to use Lync’s other functions, which will enhance collaboration between staff members and promote engagement with students and researchers at other Universities.

The app allows you to take part in Lync text conversations and lets you set your ‘presence’ info whilst away from your desk. Instructions on how to connect your phone or tablet are available in the University IT Knowledge Base, or if you have problems, contact the IT Service Desk.

Smartphones and tablets

Online conferences

The first change is that Lync connection is now available for most smartphones and tablets.

If you wish to connect your phones or tablets to Lync, you can download the Lync 2010 client from the relevant App store – there is an app available for iPhones and iPads, Android phones and some Android tablets and Windows 8 phones.

The next addition to the system will be the ability for all staff to manage and take part in Lync online conferences.

Currently, all staff can talk one-to-one with other staff members using audio and video chat only if they have webcams and/ or microphones. Staff will also be able to start ‘multi user’ audio and video chats – technically described as ‘conferences’.

Within these conferences, up to sixteen people can take part and the video feed will follow whoever is talking at the time.

Documents and whiteboards can be shared to allow users to collaborate and participants can present their

Powerpoint files. You’ll be able to share your desktop ‘live’ for tasks such as demonstrating how a particular piece of software works or allowing several people to work at once with a piece of software Lync does not directly share itself.

Our intention is to allow any staff member to start a conference and then invite users who are outside the University to join such conferences.

Ultimately, students will be able to access Lync functions through Office365 and staff will be able to conduct tutor group meetings and seminars entirely online.

With these improvements we hope you will find Lync to be a useful tool, both within and outside the University.

sustain 10 sustainability

The IT Sustainability Group was established in 2013, currently has 12 members and is growing in size. We meet with other establishments along the Oxford Road corridor creating a ‘Low Carbon’ group. One of our initial discussions was the recording and reporting of energy used in our data centres.

IT Services was involved early on with the discussion of the proposed new Engineering and Physical Science (EPS) campus, with the aim of continuing to deliver sustainable IT. Virtualisation of Servers The last few years have seen many initiatives used to reduce power usage in the data centres. Several services including business systems, databases, file storage and research data are now using more efficient ‘virtualised’ services.

There is an ongoing project to virtualise even more systems, to further reduce power usage.

vir·tu·al·ise [vur-choo-uh-lahys]

“

Networking

The Wireless roll-out project continues to upgrade and expand WiFi coverage across campus. The core network is being upgraded to a 40 Gigabit connection, with 10 Gigabit connections going into research intensive buildings.

This fast connection will allow easier access to centralised file storage for researchers.

Desktop Computers Upgrading University computers to Windows 7 is well under way. New power management software is improving power usage.

Sustainability was high on the selection criteria, when the recently introduced desktop computer procurement contract was negotiated.

The new procurement process does not purchase ‘new’ monitors by default.

verb (used with object), vir·tu·al·ised, vir·tu·al·is·ing.

to consolidate file servers into fewer computers, reducing the energy required to support the University’s business systems.

This uses fewer raw materials and less energy.

“

sustainability 11

Over the last 12 months, University IT systems combined have saved over

half a £million on

power saving initiatives

Power management software

Paper from responsible sources

Power usage statistics can be retrieved from managed desktop computers and we can assess reports from 8,100 workstations being maintained.

We’ve made sure this newsletter has been printed on FSC approved paper* (When you have finished with this publication please recycle it.)

Pull printing for students With the University student printing system having been implemented for over a year, the sustainable benefits are proving very worthwhile. It’s harder to print accidentally, saving money and paper.

Improvements have been made addressing some bugs with the payment process.

Options for staff pull printing are being considered.

Join us If you would like more information on sustainability or would like to join the group, please visit: www.sustainability.manchester.ac.uk/campus/it

ability or email ES@manchester.ac.uk

*Printed on a mix of products with material from FSC certified forests, recycled material or other controlled sources.

12 School of Computer Science

New infrastructure for the School of Computer Science A long hot summer, a busy time, and some major changes for the School of Computer Science. Three teams: Computer Science Information Services, the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences (EPS) UNIX team and members of the EPS Managed Desktop team, have been working to deliver a new Computing Infrastructure for their undergraduate and taught postgraduate students.

The School is now using a tailored version of the Faculty Scientific Linux image and the University Student Desktop for Windows in their teaching clusters.

Students now use their University usernames and passwords instead of the Computer Science versions that have traditionally been used.

Raspberry Pi computers have been introduced into the undergraduate labs as teaching tools. The Pi is an affordable, accessible and easily programmable computer the size of a credit card

developed in the UK by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The School is also now using the University pull printing service so that students can easily print from any centrally provided printer within the University.

On the face of it, just a few changes, but a lot of hard work and many hours have been spent. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all concerned in this major and successful undertaking.

“

What’s in a Raspberry Pi?

On behalf of the Computer Science School board, I’d like to thank you for all the work you’ve done on the IT infrastructure in the School in the last year and in particular over summer.

We are very pleased with the changes.

Well done!

”

Dr Goran Nenadic (Chair of the School Board) Computer Science

Key ingredients:

e tur Pic

h ec l Be u : Pa dit cre

RCA video - audio and video connections LAN - local area connection (network) SD card - memory card (for software) HDMI - high-definition multimedia interface

IT Services for Research  13

We have a dedicated IT Services for Research team who concentrate on supporting researchers with dataintensive and computationally-intensive research. Members of the team are drawn from central and faculty IT Services, the Library and research support services.

The team support a full range of e-infrastructure including Condor Pools, the Computational Shared Facility, N8 HPC and national HPC services.

At the end of each month the group produce an online newsletter featuring recent and upcoming events as well as updates from the research community.

If you don’t already receive a link to these newsletters, current and back issues can be found on our IT Services for Research website, where you can also find details of our facilities and contact information: www.its.manchester.ac.uk/research

IT Services for Research

14 IT Services for Research

High Performance Computing Our University researchers have access to the N8 High Performance Computing (HPC) facility, a shared ‘Tier 2’ HPC facility which enables collaborations between institutions, underpins world-class research and creates opportunities to engage more effectively with business and the community.

The facility – Polaris – is an SGI High Performance Computing cluster with 332 compute nodes. Each node has two of the latest Intel Sandy Bridge processors, and a capacity of 320 GigaFLOPS. Project Principal Investigators can apply for access to this facility through a lightweight peer review process. Robin Pinning and Gillian Sinclair are the local contacts for University researchers.

To find out more about N8 HPC, please see the website: www.n8hpc.org.uk or contact enquiries@n8hpc.org.uk

IT Services for Research computing clubs IT Services has several regular clubs aimed at researchers.

Details of how to keep up to date with each club are available on their websites. These are open to interested researchers from all faculties:

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) Club – GPUs are now an established option for intensive computation. The acclaimed GPU Club brings researchers together, via club meetings and social media, to share tips on optimising codes for GPUs and other emerging technology such as Intel Xeon Phi and fieldprogrammable gate arrays (FPGAs). gpu.manchester.ac.uk

Image-Based Modelling Club – this brings together University researchers who use computer models based on real geometries to help understand the physical behaviour of materials, structures and systems. wiki.rac.manchester.ac.uk/community/IBM

Finite Element Club – a forum where researchers can discuss a range of topics related to finite element modelling, including research and development and practical tips and tricks for users.

Open to everyone, from finite element analysis (FEA) developers to users of commercial applications. wiki.rac.manchester.ac.uk/community/FiniteElements

Multiscale Club – bringing together researchers whose work covers multiple time and length scales, from all paradigms (e.g., experiment, simulation and data mining). wiki.rac.manchester.ac.uk/community/MultiscaleResearch

IT Services for Research  15

University selected as an NVIDIA CUDA Research Centre We are pleased to announce that our University has been chosen as an official NVIDIA CUDA Research Centre. We are joining institutions at the forefront of the world’s most innovative and important scientific research. NVIDIA is a global technology company who manufacture GPUs (graphics processing units).

Managing your research data Research Data Management (RDM) and preservation are key to good research practice and we are currently gathering requirements for archiving research data as part of the University RDM Policy.

In order to efficiently store data we need to understand how long it needs to be kept for, what the cost implications are and any risks and issues which could arise as part of this process. With research data stored centrally it can then be re-used, making it more valuable to the University and potentially reducing costs of carrying out future research.

Our research data management complies with funding bodies, ethical and regulatory requirements for handling data as well as the Manchester 2020 vision. feedback: researchdata@manchester.ac.uk www.manchester.ac.uk/researchdata

CUDA – (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing platform and programming model, enabling a dramatic increase in computing performance by harnessing the power of the GPU. As a CUDA Research Centre we have been recognised as a university that has a growing community of researchers that embrace and utilise GPU computing across multiple research fields.

This award is a reflection of the excellent research being enabled by the use of GPU computing within the University and we are proud to be recognised for our rich history and continuing development of high end computing and visualisation. gpu.manchester.ac.uk

16 IT Services for Research

Computational Shared Facility increasing your productivity The Computational Shared Facility (CSF) is the University of Manchester’s flagship facility for Computationally-Intensive Research (CIR), also known as High Performance Computing (HPC).

The CSF started life in January 2011 with £90,000 of investment from the University. Funds contributed by research groups to the facility now total £1.3m, with approximately £300,000 being contributed in summer 2013. This represents outstanding buy-in to the service from our research colleagues!

It is managed by the Research Infrastructure team and used by academics, postdoctoral students and postgraduate students for computations which are too large to fit on desktop and laptop computers. Examples include: • work that requires large amounts of memory • using hundreds of CPU cores simultaneously • running multiple jobs (which previously took days if not weeks) There are now almost 5,000 CPU cores available to users and in addition, 27 NVIDIA GPGPUs – graphics processing units adapted for more general-purpose computational work.

Almost 200 Terabytes of local, fast scratch storage is available; up to 0.5 Terabytes of RAM is available on a single node.

Who is using the CSF? Traditionally, Computationally Intensive Research is associated with engineering, mathematics and the physical sciences.

However, use of the CSF by researchers from the Faculties of Life Sciences and Medical and Human Sciences is fast catching up with heavy use of both the computational resources and storage by genome-related work and medical image-processing, for example.

Help and Support The CSF was created to provide a professionally-managed service; a better alternative to the many small computational clusters across campus which were owned and run by individual research groups. With this in mind: a. Support for users of the CSF particularly focuses on helping those new to using shared High Performance Computing or High Throughput Computing systems to become productive; the Research Infrastructure team are happy to provide face- to-face help for small groups and individuals. b. The Research Infrastructure team attempt to accommodate the very different needs of as many University research groups as possible, including quick responses to queries and requests for support, software installations, procurement and system configurations to assist with research deadlines.

They work closely with central and faculty IT teams to provide a local service that can best respond to these varied and challenging research computing requirements.

Funding The Facility is funded on a shared model, with compute nodes procured using financial contributions from research groups and the cost of infrastructure such as login nodes, fileservers and network equipment paid for by the University.

Contributions are also accepted at University school and faculty level, so that all members of those schools and faculties then have access to the facility. The School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) and the School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science (CEAS) and the Faculty of Life Sciences have contributed in this way.

IT Services for Research 17

The Computationally Intensive Research ecosystem: The CSF forms part of a campus ‘ecosystem’ for Computationally Intensive Research (CIR): 1.

The Research Data Service (known as Isilon) is tightly integrated with the CSF, ideal for those whose work involves large quantities of data. All CSF home directories

are located on Isilon and several research groups have additional Isilon-based shares mounted across the facility; a total of approximately 100 Terabytes and growing fast.

2.

There is a dedicated 20 Gigabit network connection between the CSF and Isilon.

This dedicated Research Data Network has been extended to the Michael Smith Building within the Faculty of Life Sciences, to enable the upload of DNA sequencing and other data from experimental instruments.

3.

The CSF has a new, experimental, little brother designed specifically for

computationally-intensive, interactive work. The iCSF (also known as INCLINE – the INteractive Computational LINux Environment) will be used for development and testing of research codes, and for interactive use of applications, initially for statistical analysis.

4. A virtual desktop service which allows users to use the same desktop session to access the CIR ecosystem from on campus, at home or anywhere in the world.

If you would like more details about the service, please visit the web site: ri.itservices.manchester.ac.uk/csf or contact the Research Infrastructure team via: its-ri-team@manchester.ac.uk

How the CSF compares to an average £500 desktop PC bought in November 2013:

Desktop PC RAM (Random Access Memory) 8 Gigabytes

CPU (Central Processing Unit) cores

CSF 300 nodes; most have 64 Gigabytes of RAM; four have 256 Gigabytes RAM; one has 0.5 Terabytes of RAM

4 5,000

Storage space 2 Terabytes

almost 200 Terabytes (also fast network link to the RDS – expandable to 15 Petabytes)

In addition, whilst the average home broadband connection stands at a speed of 14.7 Megabits per second*, the Research Data Service connection runs at 20 Gigabits per second, or approximately 20,480 Megabits per second.

The interconnect between some compute nodes runs at 40 Gigabits per second. * Source: Ofcom August 2013

Contact us To send general comments and feedback on any of our services visit: www. its.manchester.ac.uk/talktous IT Services The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL www.its.manchester.ac.uk

@UoM_ITS University of Manchester ITS

Royal Charter Number RC000797 ITS_75-11.13