SoftwareApplication
identifier: 10.5281/zenodo.4895357
name: Magic Castle
description: Magic Castle aims to recreate the HPC user experience in public clouds.
description: The Digital Research Alliance of Canada provides HPC infrastructure and support to every academic research institution in Canada. The Alliance uses CVMFS, a software distribution system developed at CERN, to make its research software stack available on its HPC clusters, and anywhere else with internet access. This enables replication of the user experience outside of The Alliance physical infrastructure. From these new possibilities emerged an open-source software project named Magic Castle, which aims to recreate the HPC user experience in public clouds. Magic Castle uses the open-source software Terraform and HashiCorp Language (HCL) to define the virtual machines, volumes, and networks that are required to replicate a virtual HPC infrastructure. The infrastructure definition is packaged as a Terraform module that users can customize as they require. After deployment, the user is provided with a complete HPC cluster software environment including a Slurm scheduler, a Globus Endpoint, JupyterHub, LDAP, DNS, and over 3000 research software applications compiled by experts with EasyBuild. Magic Castle is compatible with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, OpenStack, and OVH.
code repository: https://github.com/ComputeCanada/magic_castle
author: Person
  given name: Marie-Helene
  family name: Burle
  name: Marie-Helene Burle
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Maxime
  family name: Boissonneault
  name: Maxime Boissonneault
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Charles
  family name: Coulombe
  name: Charles Coulombe
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Erik
  family name: Sundell
  name: Erik Sundell
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Simon
  family name: Guilbault
  name: Simon Guilbault
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Félix-Antoine
  family name: Fortin
  name: Félix-Antoine Fortin
  role name: Maintainer
  affiliation: Organization
    name: Université Laval
author: Person
  given name: Frédéric
  family name: Fortier-Chouinard
  name: Frédéric Fortier-Chouinard
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Adam
  family name: Huffman
  name: Adam Huffman
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Étienne
  family name: Parent
  name: Étienne Parent
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Chris
  family name: Want
  name: Chris Want
  role name: Contributor
author: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7588-9500
author: Person
  given name: Justin
  family name: Lagüe
  name: Justin Lagüe
  role name: Contributor
author: Person
  given name: Pier-Luc
  family name: St-Onge
  name: Pier-Luc St-Onge
  role name: Contributor
author: 0000-0001-8034-648X
keywords: HPC
keywords: research software
keywords: CERN
keywords: virtual machine
programming language: HCL
programming language: Python
programming language: Shell
license:
  creative work: creativeWork
    name: Open Access

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7588-9500
type: Person
given name: Darren
family name: Boss
name: Darren Boss
role name: Contributor
affiliation: Organization
  name: Compute Canada

0000-0001-8034-648X
type: Person
given name: Kenneth
family name: Hoste
name: Kenneth Hoste
role name: Contributor
affiliation: Organization
  name: Ghent University