Speakers
Description
The SKA SRCNet project will provide a globally distributed network of compute resources to enable scientific analysis of the vast data volumes produced by the Square Kilometre Array. These resources are contributed by institutions across multiple countries and are therefore highly heterogeneous, creating challenges in defining consistent compute pledges, accounting, and fair resource usage across the network.
To address these issues, SRCNet requires a common compute metric and corresponding accounting solution. In addition, institutions procuring new systems need guidance on optimising cost-effectiveness and utilisation for SRCNet workloads.
Inspired by HEPScore, we are developing STARS, a benchmark suite designed to provide a representative compute metric for large-scale, heterogeneous radio astronomy computing environments.
Developing such a metric presents challenges, including the diversity of radio astronomy software and the lack of mature production workloads while the telescopes are still under construction. We present the current status of STARS, our approach to building a representative software suite, and the accompanying SRCNet Accounting API, which enables SRCNet-wide per-user accounting based on node-level benchmark results, together with lessons learned and our roadmap.