This year's annual DEISA Symposium took place in Edinburgh in April; its purpose was to provide a forum where scientists from around the world can discuss HPC e-Infrastructures in general and for DEISA users to share their experiences and results.
There were 132 people from 16 countries in attendance. The venue was a Geology Museum named Our Dynamic Earth, which is set at the foot of an extinct volcano in the edge of Edinburgh’s Old Town.
An exhibition area on the first floor contained 11 posters from the DEISA Extreme Computing Initiative 2007 and some further exhibits describing EPCC and the UK HPC services available within DEISA.
The talks were split into two groups, where the first day saw talks of a general nature about the current status of HPC Grids both in Europe and in America, whilst the second day saw talks from actual users of the DEISA infrastructure.
Day one: talks from key players in the field of HPC e-Infrastructures
The first day was introduced by Arthur Trew, the director of EPCC, where he welcomed Jane Nicholson, from the UK’s EPSRC funding council. This was immediately followed by a description of the DEISA infrastructure itself, by Paolo Malfetti, and then a talk on some of the ground-breaking science achieved thanks to DEISA, presented by Hermann Lederer.
Thomas Eickermann then presented the current state of PRACE, while Marian GarciaVidondo described the service provided by GEANT2, which provides the network between the DEISA sites.
After the break, Victor Alessandrini invited Alistair Dunlop to present the findings of the OMII-Europe project. Thereafter both Ed Seidel and Al Kellie gave their impressions on the requirements for the future of HPC from an American perspective.
Day two: talks from DEISA users
The following day saw presentations from Xavier Daura on simulating protein dynamics for vaccine research; Karsten Reuter on molecular switches at metal surfaces; and Jukka Heikkinenon on plasma turbulence.
The final session saw talks from Lucas Visscher, Sascha Husa and Stefano Corni, who presented their work on simulating photodissocation, blackhole coalescence and interactions of protein withsurfaces mediated by water, respectively.
The DEISA Symposium is traditionally held once a year during the Spring. This was the fourth symposium, and previous symposia were held in Paris, Bologna and Munich.
