Page 59 - Roadmap

7.6. E-INFRASTRUCTURES

E-INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE GROUP

Presentation of the RI group
E-infrastructure that complies with European standards and demands, featuring a complex portfolio of services, with full
connection to the approx. 40 European National Research and Education Network (NREN), and indirect connection to
an additional approx. 60 non-European national research e-infrastructures. Covers all internationally accepted functions of
ICT-based communication and cooperation, information processing and data storage, providing all research areas with e-
infrastructure. The e-infrastructure of KIFÜ (Government Information Technology Agency), as part of the GÉANT in-
frastructure (European ICT infrastructure) and the PRACE infrastructure (pan-European supercomputing infrastructure),
provides stable and full-featured connection and cooperation for accessing all research institutions and researchers in Europe,
including all European research infrastructures (ESFRI, ERIC and others) building on the tools of multimedia information
management, resource and service virtualisation, federal identification etc. As of 2017, the research network connects more
than 1.7 million domestic users to international educational and research network with a speed of up to 500 Gbps. The dis-
tributed HPC facility operated by KIFÜ offers a capacity of over 448 Tflops (8900 CPU+GPU cores) and 8 PB hard drive
storage to researchers in the country and the region. This is completed with the C4E cloud system with more than 2600
cores and 15 PB storage capacity available to the domestic research and education community. Without them the Hungarian
roadmap of research infrastructures would collapse, due to the lack of online availability of the domestic and international
infrastructure facilities and services. Research and development is supported by the HAS Cloud computing capacity launched
in 2016 and accessible through the KIFÜ network, whose twin modules are located in the Wigner Data Centre (MTA
Wigner FK) and the MTA SZTAKI. In the 4 MW Data Centre currently 70,000 CPU cores and 80 PB disk space support
CERN HL-LHC research programmes (around 10,000 users) over a 300 Gbit/s direct connection. In parallel to this, the
HAS Cloud and the Wigner Cloud established in 2015 have a combined capacity of 2500 CPU cores (5000 virtual cores)
and 2 PB disk space. The Wigner Cloud has launched an integrated GPU programme in 2018 with 8 NVIDIA Tesla V100
units featuring a total performance of 62 Tflops in the case of double-precision calculations and 1 Pflop in the case of tensor
calculations. This domestic capacity is currently able to serve approximately 1000 Hungarian and regional researchers.

National coordinator of the RI group: Background information
KIFÜ (Government Information Technology Agency) in cooperation with The foundations of the Hungarian e-infrastructure were laid down by
the HAS (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) institutes the IIF Programme launched in 1986-87, and later the NIIF (National
Information Infrastructure Development) Programme. During the
Contact: KIFÜ, Vice-Presidential Division of Infrastructure, Department gradual development of the domestic research network and expanding
of Research and Development international relations, the NIIF Institute was established in the early
Email: intproject@niif.hu 1990s to operate and develop the NIIF Programme and the HUN-
Website: www.kifu.gov.hu GARNET Association to represent the interests of stakeholders. The
Institute was integrated into KIFÜ by a government decision in 2016.

Partners: MTA Wigner FK; MTA SZTAKI Aim of the RI group
Further partners: 57 research institutes; 26 universities; 5600 primary and The mission and vision have not changed from the beginning: to pro-
secondary schools; 580 libraries and other public collections, more than 1.7 vide an internationally competitive, stable and sustainable e-infrastruc-
million users ture to the research and education sector in Hungary. Sustainability is
ensured by the government decree on the NIIF Programme and by the
ESFRI connection: PRACE, HL-LHC, ELI, XFEL (through the GEANT active participation in national and international development pro-
and KIFÜ network) grams. The strategic objectives derived from the mission and the vision
include the development of the entire service portfolio, enhanced in-
Status of the RI group: distributed, multi-site stitutional and EC cooperation and participation in major interna-
tional projects. The excellent e-infrastructure parameters will facilitate
innovative national research and an open education that promotes cre-
ativity. The HAS Cloud in the Wigner Data Centre, combined with
the computing capacity of the Wigner Cloud can simultaneously serve
nearly 1000 potential national and Central European users in the fields
of particle physics, gravity research, artificial and intelligent materials,
brain research, bioinformatics and computational sciences. The capac-
ity can also be substantially extended.

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