Abstract

GARR, SWITCH, and GÉANT deploy an advanced multi-domain connection between ECMWF and CSCS

Earth sciences and the study of climate change require substantial computational power and cutting-edge networks. An example of this is the deployment of an end-to-end, ultra-large bandwidth connection between the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) in Lugano, which hosts the MeteoSwiss weather prediction model, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in Bologna. This link spans three different domains: the two national research networks (GARR in Italy and SWITCH in Switzerland) and the pan-European GÉANT network interconnecting the two. This interconnection is part of the SwissTwins project, an international collaboration to facilitate, among other things, access to ECMWF forecast products and meteorological archive for the training of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) models that run on the Alps HPC system. ECMWF has one of the largest meteorological archives in the world and also provides other datasets, widely used for model training, like meteorological reanalysis. These models have shown great potential in forecasting atmospheric conditions and weather patterns and there is a lot of research activity aimed at applying these methods to climate scenarios as well. As part of this project, a dedicated Data Hypercube—a high-performance storage and data processing cluster—will be deployed at the centre in Bologna and connected to the CSCS Alps data centre infrastructure in Lugano. This cluster will support data access with low latency and the extraction of specific datasets to train AI and ML models for the benefits of the Swiss and international numerical weather and climate prediction community. Thanks to the collaboration between GARR, SWITCH and GÉANT, the two centres are now interconnected by a state-of-the-art, ultra-large bandwidth dedicated connection that seamlessly traverses the three network domains.