UK science community to benefit from major cloud computing and storage upgrade
2 Jun 2014 04:16 PM
STFC and NERC yesterday (2 June 2014) celebrate
the completion of a major upgrade to the JASMIN data analysis infrastructure
that plays a key role in the assessment and evaluation of huge sets of
environmental data produced by the UK scientific
community.
JASMIN has been designed for the Big Data challenges
posed by 21st century environmental science and will expand its role as the
infrastructure in which a plethora of science community services are run. The
current upgrade will ensure a better understanding of, and a quicker response
to, environmental change.
Run
by STFC on behalf of NERC, JASMIN is based at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory. It is half super-computer and half data-centre and as such provides
a globally unique computational environment. It is responsible for two main
functions: infrastructure for the data storage and services of the Centre for
Environmental Data Archival (CEDA), including the British Atmospheric Data
Centre; and providing a platform for data-intensive scientific computation for
the environmental science community.
Dr
Andrew Taylor, STFC Director of National Laboratories said "STFC is
pleased to exploit our expertise in data management and scientific computing to
support NERC by delivering this key national facility, which we expect to
underpin analysis of large environmental datasets for many years to
come."
Environmental science is benefiting from an exponential
increase in data from new observing platforms – from sensor webs to Earth
observation satellites. At the same time, increased computer power coupled with
sophisticated mathematics, is opening up more environmental science to accurate
simulation, which also generates vast quantities of data.
As
a consequence, all environmental scientists face new infrastructural
challenges. Recognising these challenges, STFC and NERC continue to invest in
JASMIN – a massive world class facility to provide UK environmental
science with a unique platform for data analysis.
Professor Duncan Wingham, NERC’s chief executive
said: “NERC welcomes this major upgrade to this world-class facility.
JASMIN is a unique hybrid of petascale storage, high-performance computing and
networking, coupled with cloud hosting capabilities, and will make a
significant contribution to one of NERC’s most strategically important
challenges: the improvement of predictive environmental
science.
Professor Stephen Mobbs, director of the National Centre
for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) said: “With this upgrade, JASMIN will
provide the entire NERC community with a key platform to exploit the
heterogeneous and high volume data typical of modern environmental
science.”
Many datasets, particularly model data, are too big to
be easily shipped around. JASMIN enables scientists to bring their processing
to the data.
Professor Peter Jan van Leeuwen, acting director of the
National Centre for Earth Observation said “With JASMIN, the UK will be
well placed to exploit the wealth of earth observation data coming from the
European Space Agency and elsewhere over the next
decade.”
Further information
Marion O'Sullivan
STFC Press Office
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Tel. 01235 445627
Mobile 07824 888990
External links