Research | Computer Center and Network Services
Laboratories
Mission of the Laboratory
The laboratory houses equipment for providing basic services such as e-mail and DNS. It also allows access to advanced services such as the e-learning platform, as well as providing resources and tools for supporting the research activities carried on in the Department. The laboratory is equipped by its own independent systems for air conditioning, fire detection, fire signalling and extinguishing. This system is necessary to ensure the correct operation of the installed equipment 24 hours a day. In addition, the laboratory houses the cabinet for providing network services to the first floor of the Department. The processing systems are located in rack cabinets equipped with UPS to ensure continuous working.
The Computer and Network Services Center is under the responsibility of the Department Director.
Technical Description
All applied and industrial research areas require particular computing and storage infrastructures with different levels of scalability. These infrastructures range from CPU-intensive simulation applications, to image/video analysis for biometric security, to adaptive knowledge mining/discovery systems for experiential learning and next-generation Grid systems.
In the laboratory, both locations for the exclusive use of research areas and computing infrastructure designed specifically for virtualization that provide a concrete, effective and efficient response to the research needs of the Department are present.
Equipment
Virtualization infrastructure for scientific research in multidisciplinary fields.
The equipment of the laboratory consists
- Processing systems.
- Storage systems.
- Virtualization and management systems.
In the first category, there are processing components, three two-way quadcore servers (for a total of 24 cores), an infrastructure management server and one for allowing the access to the file systems by the Department's users/servers.
The second categoty is a SAN configured according to the type of use, that is virtual machine image hosting, file repository and database hosting based on microsoft technology, with a capacity of about 10 TeraBytes. The last categoty is VMware's virtualization and control suite consisting of three server licenses and a configuration/management/control console. The first two systems are interconnected in redundant FB technology. The second one allows automatic recovery of VMs in case of unavailability of one of the workload balancing servers.
- Main use: The main purpose of this infrastructure is to satisfy "on-demand" and in a completely adaptive and optimized way the different needs expressed by the research areas in the Department.
- Year of purchase: 2010
- Value at purchase (taxes excluded): 125,000 €
- Purchase taxes (e.g. VAT): VAT 25.000 €
- Origin of funds: Funding of scientific equipment and support for departments and interdepartmental centres in 2009 (plus additional contributions)
Infrastructure for modelling networks by fluid dynamic approaches
- Fujitsu-Siemens 2-Node cluster based on RX300S3 processors and FibreCAT SX60 storage
- Main use: Execution of fluid dynamic models for the analysis of traffic on urban and telecommunications networks, and for the experimentation of advanced network services with high levels of availability
- Year of purchase: 2007
- Value at purchase (taxes excluded): 23.000 €
- Purchase taxes (e.g. VAT): VAT 4.600 €
- Origin of funds: Funding of scientific equipment and support for departments and interdepartmental centres in 2004 (plus additional contributions).
Blade Systems
- 6 IBM Enclosure for Blade-type processing systems with a total of 34 HS20-type systems
- Year of purchase: 2004
- Value at purchase (taxes excluded): 180.000 €
- Purchase taxes (e.g. VAT): VAT 36.000 €
- Origin of funds: Research Project "Simulation and Optimization of Telecommunications Networks" and Large-Scale Equipment Financing Learning GRID
