We are CSCS: Matthias Kraushaar

Specialisation
I am currently responsible for the HPC platform service offered to the users of CSCS. This role involves ensuring that the underlying internal services comprising the current plat- form “Piz Daint” are working as intended and are being properly supported. This means I facilitate communication in my everyday work. In the case of an intervention becoming necessary on the system, for instance, I assist in organizing the work internally so that it causes as little impact to the users as possible. I also centralize the monitoring of the plat- form, ensuring the desired level of quality. The data is collected through tools observing the system’s state directly, but also through more indirect means, e.g., the service requests submitted by users. Finally, a service offered to users like this HPC platform, naturally, is subject to continuous development in order to adapt to changing requirements, be it the users’ workflows or from a system perspective. The latter is particularly true today with the next generation production system “Alps” arriving at CSCS.

What working at CSCS means to me
Working at CSCS is exciting due to it being a national supercomputing centre, which gives me the opportunity to work on technology not available in many other places. Moreover, contributing to the centre’s efforts of providing reliable systems is important to me, be- cause this is what enables our users in Switzerland and abroad to advance with their work.

What I like most about my work
As a service manager, I have to keep a more system-wide view of the solutions that are delivered to our users. I find it interesting to plan and implement a system at a level that others rely on for their daily work. In addition, I like the working environment. Being part of teams with members from different disciplines and different cultural backgrounds is always interesting; and, when it comes to tackling a problem, I have the impression that a wider solution space is considered in such groups.

What challenges me at my work
For the use cases that are run on our systems, there is usually no one-size-fits-all solution. Accommodating the different user needs within a single platform can be difficult at times and makes for an interesting challenge. Also, being inside a research environment, it is not always easy to find the balance between a stable, established system and moving to the next new technology.