SNIC joins iRODS Consortium

The Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC), a national research infrastructure hosted at universities across Sweden, is the newest member of the iRODS Consortium, the membership-based foundation that leads development and support of the integrated Rule-Oriented Data System (iRODS).

SNIC provides balanced and cost-effective resources and user support for large-scale computation and data storage to researchers in all scientific disciplines nationwide. The resources are made available through open application procedures so that the best Swedish research is supported.

SNIC services are provided by six university-based high performance computing (HPC) centres:

• the High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N) at Umeå University,
• the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science (UPPMAX) at Uppsala University,
• the PDC Center for High Performance Computing at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology,
• the National Supercomputer Centre (NSC) at Linköping University,
• the Chalmers Centre for Computational Science and Engineering (C3SE) at Chalmers University of Technology and
• LUNARC, the Center for Scientific and Technical Computing at Lund University.

These SNIC partner centres provide the expert services needed to ensure that researchers can make optimal use of national HPC resources, resolving problems that range from compiling code to data management.

As an iRODS Consortium member, SNIC is incorporating iRODS into its national service portfolio and deploying iRODS-based storage for research data. SNIC technical experts also plan to collaborate with iRODS developers and other consortium members to

• enable new iRODS features based on the needs of users,
• contribute to the development of the open source, graphical interface Kanki iRODS client, and
• contribute to the continuing integration of iRODS into HPC systems, including parallel file system integration and possible future high-performance transport mechanisms for iRODS.

“At SNIC, we look forward to serving the Swedish scientific research community with our new iRODS-based infrastructure and we are excited to be members of the consortium,” said Dejan Vitlacil, SNIC storage coordinator. “We see supporting the continuity of the development of iRODS as vitally important to our operation and we are happy to see a vibrant and growing community behind iRODS.”

In addition to SNIC, iRODS Consortium members include Bayer, Dell/EMC, DDN, HGST, IBM, Intel, MSC, the National Institute for Computational Science at the University of Tennessee, OCF, RENCI, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), University College London, Utrecht University, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. Consortium members direct the technology and governance of iRODS, which is used by thousands of businesses, research institutes, universities, and governments worldwide. Consortium members also receive priority access to support, training, and consulting.

“With SNIC as a member of the consortium, iRODS becomes an important piece of the technology infrastructure that supports Swedish research endeavors,” said Jason Coposky, iRODS Consortium executive director. “We are thrilled to be the data management and storage solution for SNIC and to work with them to enable research and discovery across Sweden.”

To learn more about iRODS and the iRODS Consortium, please visit irods.org .

To learn more about SNIC, please visit www.snic.se .