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Biomedical Research Computing

Biomedical Research Computing

Latest BMRC News


Want to work with BMRC? See below!

 

December 2020 - Latest updates from the BMRC team:

BMRC is continuing to support researchers working from home, and in particular we are proud to have been able to offer so much support to the various Covid-19 research projects across the Medical Sciences Division. Please remember that access to BMRC facilities is only via the University network or via University / departmental VPNs. BMRC does not itself enable access to our systems, this is the responsibility of the host departments.

Please continue to respect the login nodes. They are the key access gateway for hundreds of researchers working remotely and from home. We monitor these nodes especially carefully and will immediately and without warning kill any jobs that threaten their general usability.

Hopefully 2021 will bring better times for everyone. For BMRC, many changes are coming:

  • A bigger BMRC team to provide better and more specialised support for our users, who will include researchers from the Kennedy Institute from Easter
  • 2,304 new CPU cores will be joining the  cluster to replace the 1,728 cores of the old "C" nodes, taking us closer to 10,000 CPU cores in total
  • Expansion of GPFS3 to 11PB raw in addition to the 5PB of GPFS2 to meet the growing data demands of our users
  • Faster InfiniBand (HDR) including an upgrade to 800Gbit/s for the WHG-BDI link
  • Faster Ethernet (100g) including a new 400Gbit/s WHG-BDI link
  • Exploring the potential of Lustre as a secure, multi-tenancy, high-performance filesystem to enable a greater range of research to be housed on our systems
  • A prototype multi-site, encrypted Ceph object storage system to provide a truly scalable, secure archive layer for everyone's bulk data needs

As ever... If you have difficulties please email bmrc-help@medsci.ox.ac.uk for assistance... stay home, stay safe...

Season's Greetings from the BMRC team!


JOB OPPORTUNITIES WITH BMRC

 

December 2020:

Oxford's Biomedical Research Computing (BMRC), the compute facility of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics and the Oxford Big Data Institute, has been busy with the best of you, but now it is time to expand our team of five ready for future challenges... So, if joining a growing team at the heart of some truly fantastic research - including lots of world-leading Covid-19 research - appeals then read on...

First, we are looking for a Grade 7 Research Computing Administrator to join the team based in the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics. The role will be mostly directly supporting users in getting their science done and will have a particular role supporting the electron microscopy (EM) research of the Centre. This role would be an ideal stepping-stone into research computing for someone with a strong background in scientific computing, especially in the research areas of BMRC, rather than requiring a high level of hardware knowledge at the outset - the closing date for this post is Monday 18th January


Second, we are advertising for a Grade 7 Information Governance Officer based in the Big Data Institute to help with all aspects of our compliance, but especially for our on-premise cloud-based services, so that we can bring new areas of research to our platforms. The role will be particularly supporting the Novartis-Oxford collaboration in data science and AI and the research of the National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging (NCIMI) - the closing date for this post is Monday 11th January


Finally, our friends at the neighbouring the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology are also looking for a Grade 8 Research Computing Administrator. From Easter 2021, the Kennedy Institute will join with BMRC to develop further our coherent, centrally managed research computing capability. This role with jointly report to myself and to Brian Marsden (brian.marsden@kennedy.ox.ac.uk) and will partly be to directly supporting users in getting their science done on BMRC facilities and also to be responsible for the hardware that remains in the Kennedy Institute - the closing date for this post is Monday 11th January



The Biomedical Research Computing Facility

The Biomedical Research Computing (BMRC) facility provides a unified platform for biomedical reseach computing accessible to departments as well as to collaborators from around Oxford. Our services include:

  • High-performance batch (cluster) computing, including specialised hardware and software to support GPU-enabled code and AI/Machine Learning
  • Large, fast storage systems backed by ultra-fast networking
  • Low-cost data storage
  • On-premise cloud computing (OpenStack)
  • Training and workshops on using these facilities

Our future plans include:

  • Virtual servers and desktops
  • On-premise Object Storage (S3)
  • High-compliance compute platforms