NAG: Numerical Algorithms Group to Provide HPC Support Services for New UK Supercomputer
NAG & EPSRC sign multi-year agreement to provide computational science and engineering (CSE) support for HECToR
Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) announce the signing of a multi-year agreement that will have NAG provide computational science and engineering support for users of the High End Computing Terascale Resources (HECToR) Project in the United Kingdom. With NAG's assistance in porting and tuning, a number of research consortiums with computationally-intensive projects will move their codes to the HECToR system beginning in October 2007. Preliminary work on the project will begin in April 2007.
Through NAG's role in HECToR, scientific researchers will have access to NAG's extensive expertise in HPC code development, porting and optimization. A significant feature of this agreement is that NAG will provide both a centralized team of HPC experts at NAG's Oxford offices and a distributed team embedded in HECToR-affiliated research groups throughout the UK; in total around 20 full-time equivalent people per year. Where appropriate, NAG will seek to partner with other organisations to deliver specific aspects of the service such as the Oxford e-Science Research Centre (www.oerc.ox.ac.uk).
EPSRC, acting as managing agent on behalf of all the UK Research Councils, has been planning the HECToR partnership since late 2003. After an extensive competitive bidding process, EPSRC selected Cray Inc to provide the hardware environment, which will be accommodated and managed by UoE HPCX Ltd at the University of Edinburgh's Advanced Computing Facility. The HECToR service is due to start in October 2007 and will have an initial theoretical peak capability of 60 Tflop/s, increasing to approximately 250 Tflop/s peak in October 2009 with a further upgrade planned for October 2011.
Dr. Rob Meyer, NAG CEO explains, "NAG is delighted to be returning to its roots in UK Academia. NAG's selection to provide HECToR CSE Support reflects the decades of experience NAG has had in porting and tuning numerical codes for high performance systems. The NAG Libraries, both for serial as well as for parallel-processing architectures, have been used by scientists for research applications since we began making them commercially available more than 30 years ago. Through this partnership, NAG plans to help drive UK science forward by providing world-class support for the UK's world-class researchers."
For more information on HECToR visit www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/FacilitiesAndServices/HighPerformanceComputing/ HECToR/default.htm.
About NAG
NAG is dedicated to making world-class cross-platform mathematical, statistical, data mining components and tools for developers. NAG serves it customers from offices in Oxford, Chicago and Tokyo supporting over 10,000 customer sites worldwide in finance, engineering, and scientific research. NAG software is the choice of over 25 independent software vendors including Oracle, IBM, DemandTec and many others.
About EPSRC
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. The EPSRC is investing £650 million this year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC also actively promotes public awareness of science and engineering. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via Research Councils UK. Website address for more information on EPSRC: www.epsrc.ac.uk/.
For more information, please contact:
Rachel Foot
NAG Ltd
rachel.foot@nag.co.uk
