ioChem-BD gets 220 TB from the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES)

The project renews its RES resource allocation until 2028 with 220 TB of storage and two virtual machines at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS)

ioChem-BD, the platform from the Institut Català d’Investigació Química (ICIQ-CERCA) continues to benefit from the resources available from the Spanish Supercomputing Network with 220 TB. According to the scientific and technical quality criteria of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) evaluation committee, ioChem-BD “is a relevant scientific project with the required excellence for achieving its overall scientific goals”.

ioChem-BD started its relationship with the BSC-CNS in 2021 , when the project was given 22 TB of storage. Since then, this computational chemistry platform has been providing its services to researchers worldwide. In the BSC public access node they can upload, manage, and publish their own results totally free of charge.

Now, the total of the resources given includes 88 TB of hierarchical storage management (HSM) and 22 TB of disk space at the BSC-CNS. This combination of slow and fast storage space is ideal for warehouses, as frequently consulted results remain in the fast access, while those consulted more sporadically remain in the HSM. The other 110 TB are backup disk space at the Consortium of University Services of Catalonia (CSUC). In addition, the project will have access to several virtual machines (VMs), which will be highly useful for speeding up the services at the BSC public access node.

ioChem-BD has received these resources as one of its main objectives is to promote the FAIR data principles by making the users’ data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable data. The platform follows these principles, and its advanced search engines, data identifier generators, visualisation tools, or output reports are some of the features that are in line with the idea that science should be open to the world.

“Having the support of the RES and of the BSC-CNS in particular is a great opportunity to continue growing, but also a great responsibility. We have to keep working and show that our project is worthwhile”.

Professor Carles Bo

Professor Bo, who serves as liaison with RES, agrees that computational chemistry is closely related to computer science. “At ICIQ, we aim to be leaders in this field, which is why we are always on the lookout for these kinds of opportunities”, claims Prof. Bo.