EPCC

Grid, Cloud and distributed computing consultancy and solutions

We provide impartial advice to companies on the commercial and open source technologies that are available and which best fit their requirements.

GridSAFE   is a suite of tools developed by EPCC for the management of resources and users/projects on HPC and Grid-based systems. It is used by a range of HPC resources around the UK, including the national computing services, and in Grid infrastructures in Europe.

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Data integration and data mining consultancy

EPCC has undertaken many commercial data mining projects. Our approach is to focus on a detailed understanding of the underlying data using standard statistical tools and decision tree analysis.

We lead ADMIRE   (Advanced Data Mining and Integration Research for Europe), an EU-funded project that aims to deliver a consistent and easy-to-use technology for extracting information and knowledge.

Since 2000, EPCC has focused a large research and development effort on our OGSA-DAI  (Open Grid Services Architecture - Data Access and Integration) service framework. This technology was developed with IBM and Oracle and is the world’s leading data access and integration solution for accessing widely distributed relational and XML-based databases.

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European Project Coordination

EPCC takes a leadership role in European research programmes and has a long history of coordinating major Integrated Projects and strategy setting.

We lead ADMIRE and the PlanetHPC project, which offers a unique forum for European researchers and industrialists to identify the research challenges facing high performance computing.

EPCC also led NextGRID  

EPCC Industry Hub

The Industry Hub is a one stop shop for industry supercomputing. It coordinates EPCC’s ‘cycles, software and skills’ activities:

• Cycles – provision of compute and data resources

• Software – provision of simulation and bespoke applications to meet industry challenges

• Skills – understanding industry problems and finding solutions.

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Technology transfer

EPCC has always worked with industry, allowing it to benefit from our highly skilled staff and leading edge facilities. Our collaborations can vary from directly funded to locally supported or European projects.

Since 2006 we have worked with 75 companies, from small businesses to multinationals. Our consultancy work has a strong focus on architecture, design and software development process.

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Bespoke software development and project management

We have a track record of delivering software projects on time and to an agreed budget. Because EPCC undertakes commercial work on a fixed-price basis, we have developed a comprehensive project management process based around the PRINCE2 methodology. This approach has proven extremely successful and we now undertake some software projects which are entirely focused on providing project management services.

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Strong IT knowledge base

The majority of our staff are educated to PhD level and we constantly refresh our expertise to take account of new technologies. The skills we currently offer include:

Code optimisation
Code parallelisation
MPI
OpenMP
Databases
Web Services
Fortran, C, C++, Java, XML, Python, C#, .NET etc
FPGAs
HPC system management
HPC training
Grid computing

Visitor programmes

EPCC has run European visitor programmes since 1993, providing facilities access and advice to European researchers.

We are part of the HPC-Europa Transnational Access programme, which offers European-based computational scientists the opportunity to travel to another country to work in collaboration with researchers in a similar field, while having access to some of the most powerful computers in Europe.

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Training

HPC training has always been a key strength of EPCC and we are a major European provider. We offer tailored training for industry and a well-established MSc in HPC.

We lead the training component of the DEISA2,  HPC-Europa 2  and EUFORIA projects

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HPC application design, development and re-engineering

One of EPCC’s core competencies is application optimisation – both the numerical algorithm aspect and also the code and memory optimisation aspect. EPCC provides the following services in this context:

• New numerical application design and development.

• Identification of suitable existing ISV software solutions.

• Code-analysis and redesign for performance. Such projects may also involve the design and delivery of new numerical algorithms designed for higher performance on the target architecture.

• Numerical modelling and simulation consultancy.

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HPC facilities access

EPCC manages an unrivalled collection of HPC systems including:

• 60-Teraflop 12,000 processor Cray XT4 HECToR system

• 2048-processor IBM BlueGene/L

• 15-Teraflop 2,560 processor IBM HPCx system.

• Our experimental award-winning 64-FPGA based Maxwell system.

These systems are all available for industry use on a pay-per-use basis.

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