The JASMIN super-data-cluster

TL;DR

The JASMIN super-data-cluster is a large-scale infrastructure supporting climate and earth system data analysis, storage, and collaboration for UK, European, and international research communities.

Contribution

This paper describes the design, deployment, and capabilities of the JASMIN super-data-cluster, integrating storage, computation, and networking for climate and earth observation data.

Findings

Supports 9.3 PB of storage and 370+ cores

Provides reliable high-speed links to UK supercomputers

Enables collaboration across UK and European climate communities

Abstract

The JASMIN super-data-cluster is being deployed to support the data analysis requirements of the UK and European climate and earth system modelling community. Physical colocation of the core JASMIN resource with significant components of the facility for Climate and Environmental Monitoring from Space (CEMS) provides additional support for the earth observation community, as well as facilitating further comparison and evaluation of models with data. JASMIN and CEMS together centrally deploy 9.3 PB of storage - 4.6 PB of Panasas fast disk storage alongside the STFC Atlas Tape Store. Over 370 computing cores provide local computation. Remote JASMIN resources at Bristol, Leeds and Reading provide additional distributed storage and compute configured to support local workflow as a stepping stone to using the central JASMIN system. Fast network links from JASMIN provide reliable communication between the UK supercomputers MONSooN (at the Met Office) and HECToR (at the University of Edinburgh). JASMIN also supports European users via a light path to KNMI in the Netherlands. The functional components of the JASMIN infrastructure have been designed to support and integrate workflows for three main goals: (1) the efficient operation of data curation and facilitation at the STFC Centre for Environmental Data Archival; (2) efficient data analysis by the UK and European climate and earth system science communities, and; (3) flexible access for the climate impacts and earth observation communities to complex data and concomitant services.