Scalable Storage Competition

High-Performance Computing (HPC) has emerged as a vital instrument for tackling intricate scientific and engineering challenges that demand substantial computational capabilities and large-scale data management. Storage subsystems play a pivotal role in ensuring the efficacy and dependability of HPC operations by facilitating rapid input/output (I/O) speeds, thereby minimizing data access and processing times, particularly in data-intensive applications. The performance of storage systems significantly influences overall system efficiency and productivity in such contexts. Moreover, high-performance storage solutions offer scalable, adaptable, and resilient data management strategies, enabling users to manage and analyze enormous datasets with proficiency. Consequently, examining various high-performance storage systems and solutions is critical for optimizing the potential of HPC infrastructures, fostering scientific advancement, and propelling innovation across diverse domains such as climate modeling, pharmaceutical research, and materials science.

To broaden the understanding and knowledge of storage solution capabilities in different scenarios and overcome the limitations imposed by personal and computational constraints during routine HPC operations, the Scalable Storage Competition (SSC) has been established. This competition not only contributes to ongoing research but also provides students with the opportunity to engage with sophisticated HPC systems, their components, and specific configurations, enhancing their teamwork skills, participating in a collegial contest, and offering networking opportunities within their peer group and the professional HPC community.

• The application form can be downloaded here: SSC Team Application
• Send filled form to: ssc-committee@gwdg.de
• Deadline for the application: 2024-11-15

Benefits for participants

The Scalable Cluster Competition offers an array of incentives to motivate participants, acknowledging their hard work and fostering collaboration:

1. Recognition and Awards: Winning teams receive small trophies and certificates of attendance, sponsored by providers and committee members, signifying their achievement and expertise in the field.
2. In-Kind Prizes: Participants have the chance to win valuable in-kind prizes, including hardware equipment and AWS credits, which can support their future projects and enhance their computing capabilities.
3. Speaking Platform: The competition provides a speaking opportunity for the teams to showcase their approaches and results both within the Scalable Storage Competition (SSC) and at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) Birds of a Feather (BoF) session, giving winners and selected voices a platform to share their insights, to engage with peers and experts, sharing their experiences and learning from others.
4. Networking Opportunities: The competition encourages networking among participants, fostering connections with potential employers, collaborators, and industry experts, opening doors for future opportunities and partnerships.
5. IO500 Ranking: Teams can submit their valid IO500 results, contributing to the IO500 leaderboard and gaining international recognition within the high performance computing community.

These incentives not only celebrate the achievements of the teams but also contribute to their professional growth and foster a supportive and competitive environment within the high performance computing community.

Course of the events

• We provide 10 storage-servers and 24 compute nodes
• You set up a cluster and storage/file system of your choice
  • Run typical I/O benchmarks/applications
  • Run I/O-heavy realistic scenarios, e.g. ML chains
• You provide documentation about your solution/results
• Experts score and rank your achievements

Details about the conduction of the event can be found here: SSC - Course of the competition

Roadmap

The SSC will take place beginning from June 2024 to June 2025. The final roadmap depends on the number of teams. The general roadmap with deadlines/dates is as follows:

1. Team/Sponsor application deadline: 2024-11-15
2. Team selection deadline: 2024-11-29
3. S^3 - Storage Summer School - Training by Vendors and GWDG: 2024-10-21 - 2024-10-24
4. Kick-off and shared access: 2024-10-25
5. End shared access: 2024-12-31
6. Exclusive access/campaign: 2025-01-13 - 2025-04-11
7. Review/Rating: 2025-04-14 - 2025-04-30
8. Reveal and discussion (SSC Teams + Organization): May 2025
9. Results Presentation at BoF ISC: June 2025

For details on the conduction of the competition c.f. SSC- Course of the competition

An overview of the content can be found on this flyer.

The official press release can be found here: SSC - Press Release (German version).

• How to participate

  
  Everything you need to know regarding Team application and selection.

• Conditions/General Rules

  
  Information about rules, technical scope, as well as support addresses.

• Committee

  
  Information about the committee members.

• Sponsors

  
  List off all sponsors for the event.

• Competition tasks

  
  Description of the tasks for the competition. This page will be updated frequently with details about the different tasks.

• System Overview

  
  Information about the system/platform used during the competition.