In Need of Partnerships - An Essay about the Collaboration between Computational Sciences and IT Services

Computational Sciences (CS) are challenging in many aspects, not only from the scientific domain they address, but especially also from the needs of the most sophisticated IT infrastructures to perform their research. Often, the latest and most powerful supercomputers, high-performance networks and high-capacity data storages are utilized for CS, while being offered, developed and operated by experts outside CS. This standard service approach has certainly been useful for many domains, but more and more often it represents a limitation to the needs of CS and the restrictions of the IT services. The partnership initiative pi(CS) established at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) moves the collaboration between Computational Scientists and IT service providers to a new level, moving from a service-centered approach to an integrated partnership. The interface between them is a gateway to an improved collaboration between equal partners, such that future IT services address the requirements of CS in a better, optimized, and more efficient way. In addition, it sheds some light on future professional development.