One of the world’s most energy efficient datacenters in Kajaani has been extended
Finnish researchers now have access to the most powerful supercomputing environment in the Nordic countries, and have world class computing capacity which enables scientific breakthroughs. Finnish higher education institutions now have a common, cost and energy efficient datacenter.
Local operators and CSC working together to reach cost-effective and centralized service
CSC's modular datacenter, located in the former UPM paper mill in Kajaani, enables quick extensions without significant construction work.
"We are happy that we have been able to utilize local organizations' expertise in building the datacenter and its extension. All parties are very happy about our collaboration", tells director Marjut Andler from CSC.
The CSC datacenter has capacity to serve both higher education institutes and other operators. The second datacenter module funded by the European Regional Development Fund was completed in November 2014. It will serve mostly higher education institutions and their common services, and it will be taken into use in 2015 in phases. Negotiations with several higher education institutes are ongoing.
State-of-the-art technology and world-class energy efficiency
The northern geographical location of Kajaani creates an optimal environment for energy efficiency: the datacenter can be air cooled year around with the cold air outside. The PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) value 1,06 is top-level in the world, and makes the CSC datacenter attractive for datacenter investors outside of Finland as well.
"Finland is regarded to be very safe and cost-efficient location for preserving and processing big masses of data. The ISO/IEC27001 security certificate of the CSC datacenters builds trust to the extension possibilities of the datacenter services", tells CSC's CEO Kimmo Koski.
After the extension researchers have the most powerful supercomputing environment in the Nordic countries
CSC's Cray XC 40 "Sisu" is number 37 on the latest Top500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, and HP supercluster Taito is number 109 on the list after the second phase extension. The datacenter capacity is complemented with a Bull hybrid system, which is co-funded by the EU's PRACE project. Also cloud service cPouta was taken into use, and it works as a seamless part of researchers' interface.
"The extended Sisu supercomputer adds to the competitiveness of Finnish computational sciences. The diverse and balanced computing and service capacity meets the needs of the users well, and Finnish researchers' suggestions are partly giving direction to CSC services' development plans also in the future", concludes Kimmo Koski.
Further information
Sisu upgrade:
Development manager Jussi Heikonen, CSC – IT Center for Science
jussi.heikonen@csc.fi
Common datacenter for higher education institutions:
Director Marjut Andler, CSC – IT Center for Science
marjut.andler@csc.fi