Computing systems
Progress of Computing Systems in EECA are influenced by the overall development of applied and basic research in the region: physics, mechanics, chemistry, etc. Activities related to high performance computing break into two groups: infrastructure development, when new supercomputers are being installed in research centers and universities, and basic research of new computational methods, development of massively parallel software and design of new computing systems.
Russia has developed an outstanding expertise in key fundamental research domains such as micro/nanoelectronic, aerospace and other scientific domains making strong use of mathematical background. All of these require intensive modeling and computations.
High Performance Computing (HPC), including Grid computing, cloud computing, supercomputers, is the major research tool in physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences. HPC is one of the driving forces of the modern technology; it is used in automobile, aerospace, microelectronics and other industries.
Russia has a critical mass of competences in HPC systems design and implementation, its applications to various needs of natural sciences and national industries.
11 Supercomputers installed in Russian Universities and research centers are listed in November 2010 TOP 500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, 30 systems have peak performance above 10 TFLOPS.
Supercomputing domain progressed in 2009-2010 rapidly: the total computing power of HPC resources doubles each year, with 20 new supercomputers launched in 20.
The computing resources of universities and research centers are being consolidated in the “University cluster” initiative that federates the HPC resources all over Russia to build a global educational and research workbench on supercomputing.
This domain is supported by the National Supercomputing Platform.
Distinguished R&D institutions:
- Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Dorodnicyn Computing Center of Russian Academy of Sciences
- Program Systems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences
- Scientific-Research Institute for System Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences
- National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute"
The works in direction of the researching and fulfilling of the high performance computing, as well as the problems of drafting their programme support are conducted. The main directions of the researches are: Parallel and distributed systems, GRID computing, Scientific Computing Application and resource monitoring, Data Mining, Word Processing, Image Processing and Understanding. Optical character recognition. Many ICT companies are specializing in the design and implementation of complex management information systems such as highly reliable complex computing systems, global automated control systems, real-time operating systems, LAN/WAN based database and management information systems, management information systems used by social security, health care, government agencies and organizations. The cluster system ArmCluster with high productivity set by the Armenian ICT-specialists is the first in the region and is quite familiar to European scientists and experts. Being the most powerful supercomputer center in the field of science and education in Armenia the ArmCluster constitutes the core of Armenian high-performance computation infrastructure and provides efficient information resources to the research and technology organizations and centers in Armenia and South Caucasus region .
The Armenian researchers have many achievements in developing of theory of automatic devices and the automated designing of computing systems, as well as in creating of mathematical models and software for distributed systems. Some companies are specialized in the area of digital design. Their activities are directed to application- specific embedded memory cores design, memory compilers and software tools creation that enable the development and reuse the memory cores as well as to development of electronic design automation (EDA) software for semiconductor design.
Distinguished R&D teams:
- Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems of NAS RA
- Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics of NAS RA
Belarus has a critical mass of competences in supercomputers and high performance computing (HPC) systems design and implementation, its applications to various needs of natural sciences and national industries. Now in Belarus realize the state scientific-engineering programme GALS-Technologies. It is designed to develop and implement information technology in industry to support the whole lifecycle of product development and production. It includes the use of contemporary CAD systems, technological works preparation, reengineering of works sequence, works management, general automation of the management of the enterprise as a whole, technical procedures of product acceptance and other aspects of product design, manufacturing, maintenance and utilization.
A cluster supercomputer family SKIF was first created in United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (UIIP NASB) in cooperation with Russian scientific centres during the period 1999-2004. Following a successful evaluation of the initial stage of supercomputer development in Belarus, a new programme - Development and implementation of science intensive computer technologies “TRIADA” - was approved and started in 2005. Three project directions are specified in the programme:
- Investigation, verification and adaptation of advanced foreign computer technologies on the basis of Russian and Belarusian high-performance multi-processors computer systems;
- Development and implementation of new science intensive technologies on the basis of high-performance multi-processor computer systems;
- Development of the system software and hardware on the basis of high-performance multi-processors computers produced in Russia and Belarus complying science intensive computer technologies.
Now Belarus organizations willing to open access to their facilities to European organizations.
The European e-Science Grid infrastructure aims to exploit the sharing of more computing resources (including distributed supercomputing), scientific instrumentation and data facilities across multiple scientific disciplines. While trust and confidence are of concern there is also a clearly identified lack of interoperability between the various infrastructures deployed worldwide. Belarus R&D centers have developed strong expertise in network architecture, security and are largely involved in open projects.
Distinguished R&D institutions:
- United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (UIIP NASB)
- Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics
Powerful supercomputers have been developed lately in a number of Ukrainian Universities. These supercomputers allow solving of complex scientific and applied problems that require significant IT resources. The most recognized Ukrainian institutions working in this area are the following: National Technical University of Ukraine “Kiev Polytechnic Institute” and Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics NAS of Ukraine which installed the cluster architecture supercomputer (CAS). Both supercomputers are a part of the Ukrainian Grid-infrastructure through the network “Ukrainian research and academic network”.
First computing cluster that consisted of four workstations and allowed parallel computations on nodes of sub-local network was developed at Information and Computer Centre of National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv.
The clusters are inter-connected by high performance optical fiber network UARnet which connected also to international nodes of Russia and Poland.
This area is recommended for EU-Ukraine cooperation because:
- Development of powerful supercomputers allows solving complex scientific and applied problems.
- Critical mass of researchers from well recognized institutions in Ukraine are engaged into this research area,
- Development of the National Grid infrastructure increases the possibilities of the Ukrainian universities to collaborate with the EU counterparts.
- Joint EU-Ukraine R&D projects will contribute to development of complex projects that require significant IT resources.
Kazakhstan is the first country in Central Asia where powerful supercomputer was installed in a University. The major trend in supercomputing is applied research for oil & gas industry.
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