Call for Large-Scale Projects

Large-scale projects and highly scalable parallel applications are characterised by large computing time requirements, not only for short time frames, but frequently for longer time periods. The GCS centres will guarantee that large-scale projects can fully utilise the assigned resources, if necessary at the expense of normal or smaller projects.

Projects are classified as "Large-Scale", if they require more than 5% of the potentially available CPU cycles on a member centre's high-end system, i.e.

• more than 70 Mill. CPU-hours at JSC (corresponding to 24 rack months IBM Blue Gene/P)
• more than 4 Mill. CPU-hours at LRZ (SGI Altix 4700)
• more than 75000 Vector-CPU-hours at HLRS (NEC SX series)

For these large-scale projects a competitive review and resource allocation process is established by the GCS. Requests for resources below these limits will be accepted by the individ­u­al member centres. Requests above these limits will be handed over to GCS, handled according to the joint procedures, and will be reviewed in the national context. Projects of smaller scale will be still handled by the local GCS member site.

A "Call for Large-Scale Projects" is published by the Gauss Centre twice a year. Dates for closure of calls are usually at the end of February and at the end of August of each year. The deadline for the current call is

31 August 2010, 17:00

Eligible are applications from publicly funded academic and research institutions, e.g., universities, Max-Planck Society and Helmholtz Association.

Answering the Call

Leading, ground-breaking projects should deal with complex, demanding, innovative simula­tions that would not be possible without the GCS infrastructure, and which can benefit from the exceptional resources provided by GCS.

Application for a large-scale project should be performed by filling in the electronic application form that can be accessed from the GCS web page "Computing Time"

Note that also the regular application forms of the GCS member centres can be reached from there, and users are encouraged to choose a centre that provides the architecture and soft­ware most appropriate for their programs.

The proposals for large-scale projects will be first reviewed with respect to their technical feasibility. Afterwards, they will be peer-reviewed for a comparative scientific evaluation. On the basis of this evaluation by a GCS committee the projects will be approved for a period of one year and given their allocations.

Criteria for decision

Applications for compute resources are evaluated only according to their scientific excellence.

• The proposed scientific tasks must be scientifically challenging, and their treatment must be of substantial interest.
• Clear scientific goals and verifiable milestones on the way to reach these goals.
• The implementation must be technically feasible on the available computing system, and must be in proportion to the performance characteristics of these systems.
• The Principal Investigator must have a proven scientific record, and she/he must be able to successfully accomplish the proposed tasks. In particular, applicants must possess the necessary specialized know-how for the effective use of high-end computing systems. This has to be proven in the application for compute resources, e.g. by presenting work done on smaller computing systems, scaling studies etc.
• The specific features of the high-end computers should be optimally exploited by the program implemen­tations. This will be checked regularly during the course of the project.