Working as an EPCC Systems intern

Being accepted into this internship for the duration of my third year in Cybersecurity at Napier University was one of the proudest moments of my life. Being part of such a wonderful company makes me more eager to learn about the field of parallel computing and the many projects that EPCC and the Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) take part in.

Working with the various systems we manage makes my teenage dreams come to life: the different types of hardware and the immense knowledge obtained by working alongside skilled staff have brought my interest to a whole new level!

The period I have been here, helping in the various tasks of the ACF such as setting up equipment, maintaining systems, and being in the presence of experienced staff and contractors on-site, has taught me a great number of skills, boosted my confidence, and helped me further enhance my career goals and expectations.

Working on the Somerville system (more info below) at the ACF has been a great learning experience, especially knowing that it aids space research and exploration, which is one of my favourite topics ever. In addition, the need to increase automation throughout the system has consolidated my programming/scripting skills, and now I’m in a position where I can write code in a more confident manner and give further assistance to my present and future colleagues. 

Using the Linux operating system and its various distros to put what I have learned in the previous years of my course into practice has been one of the most enjoyable parts of this sandwich year. On top of this, the words “virtual machine” (VM) will forever have a different meaning in my life. Using VMs to beautifully orchestrate the operation of several clusters and systems at the ACF has broadened my horizons in terms of both computer science and personal projects.

Working in such an inclusive and motivational environment has made me want to continue taking part in more projects that aid research throughout the UK, and possibly the world, in the future.

Somerville and LSST

The Somerville system (shown below) supports UK participation in the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a next-generation sky survey to be conducted on a facility under construction in Chile. You can read about EPCC's involvement in this earlier article Preparing for an unprecedented astronomical data set.

Author

Daniel Pizarro, EPCC