Database Research Cluster

University of Salzburg

Salzburg | Website

Open for Collaboration

Short Description

The server infrastructure includes a network of 18 powerful server systems of the company Supermicro with multi-core processors based on the x86-64 architecture for calculations and experimental setups in the field of database and algorithm research. The nodes are connected with 40Gbit/s Ethernet, 2x 56Gbit/s (10 nodes) and 3x 200Gbit/s Infiniband (3 nodes), and can be used specifically for hardware-related programming and development with RDMA.

Systems with 96GB to 2TB RAM and 12 to 64 CPU cores are available. For the storage of research data, fast storage systems in RAID arrays with multiple redundancy and backups at different locations are available. A CI system supports the rapid development of research software.

The system is designed to fulfil different requirement profiles. Memory- and computationally intensive applications as well as distributed calculations can be performed on multiple nodes. In addition, applications and operating systems can be operated in isolation and can be abstracted using virtualization and containers.

For access to the server infrastructure, research computers based on the x86-64 architecture, equipped with various operating systems (Windows, Linux, MacOS) are available.

Contact Person

Prof. DI Dr. Nikolaus Augsten

Research Services

Systems and algorithms for processing data
Storing and querying large data
Approximate query processing
Spatio-temporal database systems
GIS enabled databases
Interconnected nodes with 2x56Gbit/s Infiniband (per computing node) resp. 2x200Gbit/s and 40Gbit/s ethernet technology
Direct Infiniband hardware access for RDMA-enabled software and services
Abstraction and Isolation of running systems using virtualization and container technologies
Database-as-a-service (DH-Infra Project)
Test and Development Infrastructure-as-a-service (DH-Infra Project)

Methods & Expertise for Research Infrastructure

The research infrastructure is divided into two parts: A research infrastructure and a service infrastructure.
The research infrastructure is designed for research in the field of data engineering with the aim of solving efficiency problems in data processing. In this branch of research, new algorithms are developed, implemented, and empirically evaluated. The empirical evaluation requires precise runtime measurements, measurements of memory consumption, as well as network traffic. This usually requires exclusive and physical access (bare metal) to individual servers or a cluster of servers. The usage is characterized by frequently changing configurations to be able to run tests under different conditions.
The service infrastructure focusses on providing virtualized environment for database and infrastructure as service for the digital humanities in Salzburg and Austria. The design of the service infrastructure ensures that we can tailor the hardware and software setting to the needs of serviced projects while still providing high level of security.

The research infrastructure is technically professionally administered and offers supporting services for the execution of experiments, e.g. versioned storage of experimental setups and large experimental data, E2EE for sensitive research data, fully automatic provisioning of cluster nodes, as well as databases for measurement results. Researchers are supported and advised by the technical staff during the setup of their experiments. From a scientific point of view, there is a wealth of experience in the design and empirical evaluation of single-core, multi-core, parallel shared-nothing, and distributed algorithms.