High Performance Computing services are provided by the Advanced Research Computing section. It is part of Information Technology Strategies and Developments (Emerging Technologies). It provides services to support researchers (both staff and postgraduate students) under the auspices of the IT Research Allocation Scheme (RAS). High Performance Computing is about solving problems using models which would take a long period of time (weeks or even months) due to one or more of three factors: a large data set; complex calculations; and a large number of variables in the model. It is also used for models which take a short period of time, and need to be slowed down. Weather forecasting is an example of the first type of problem, and sub-atomic events is an example of the latter. High Performance Computing is also used to speed up simulations which are required to occur in real time, such as the simulations which are run by the Computer Visualization Facility (see Section 3.3.3.3).
ARC consists of three full time staff members, world class computing and visualization facilities, and a commitment to providing high quality services to all researchers at the University of Melbourne. These services are provided on a zero-cost basis for researchers internal to the University.
If a researcher believes that they have a problem which requires the use of ARC facilities and expertise, then they should get in contact with Dirk, Paul, or Bernard. An initial consultation meeting will then be arranged, where the researcher and ARC staff member discuss the area of research in more detail, so that there is a fuller understanding of the problem.
ARC staff are able to provide researchers with advice on the appropriate hardware and software to use to solve the problem. If software needs to be developed, then ARC staff are able to provide assistance in algorithm design, and tuning of the developed code to optimize performance. ARC does not provide a programming facility, although it can assist in porting code.
The Computer Visualization Facility (see Section 3.3.3.3) is available if any of the results can be and need to be visualized.
satori is an NEC SX-4B supercomputer. It is a dual processor machine, with a peak performance of 1.8GFlops per processor. Each processor has eight vector pipes, and there is 4GB of shared RAM.
legion is the front end for the batch and parallel workstation farms. It has 512 MB RAM, and provides resources to support small batch jobs, message passing parallel jobs, and thread based parallel jobs.
The batch farm consists of 12 DS-10 Alphas from Compaq. Each DS-10 can run up to three jobs.
The parallel farm consists of 16 Digital 600au workstations. It is used for problems which are inherently parallelizable, such as 3-D rendering, ray tracing, and Monte Carlo simulations.
The thread-based parallel jobs run on a 4 CPU Compaq ES-40, which has 2GB of RAM. This is the latest node, and the CPUs are faster than those in all the other nodes.
The Computer Visualization Facility -- an initiative of the Advanced Research Computing section of the Information Division -- is a leading edge research facility. The CVF meets many of the stated aims of the Division (and the University), especially the research-based aims, and the ARC, with its focus on research, is a logical place to run such a facility.
This facility provides products to develop content for research, and learning. It contains cutting edge technology which is not readily available to departments in the University. This is due to the cost, and level of expertise required to use the equipment. By centralizing this expertise and equipment, we can best assist the University in a cost-effective way.
The features of the CVF include:
The CVF is located in Room 9, 800 Swanston St.
The University of Melbourne is a foundation member of the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing (VPAC). VPAC provides a 128 processor Compaq Alphaserver SC, training courses. VPAC is located in Victoria St opposite the City Baths. Anyone interested in using the facilities at VPAC should contact staff members in Advanced Research Computing in the first instance.
VPAC, in addition to providing computing facilities, is also tasked with promoting High Performance Computing. One way it has done this is through two types of grants:
These grants are awarded twice a year, and anyone interested in the grants should visit the VPAC website for further information.
The Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) is based at the ANU in Canberra. It has a Compaq Alphaserver SC with 184 processors, a mass data store, and a visualization facility. The Merit Allocation Scheme provides access to the bulk of APAC resources. ARC staff can assist with preparation of MAS applications.
The combination of the parallel farm and the ES-40 node enables ARC to develop jobs for VPAC and APAC. The ES-40 is an exact replica of the nodes at VPAC, and very close to those at APAC. In this way, University of Melbourne facility users can develop their code at the University, and keep the cycles allocated to the University for production runs rather than code development.
The preferred progression path for using the VPAC and APAC facilities is to develop your code here. This ensures the best access and support structures at these facilities.
We are developing a high-speed link to VPAC to seamlessly integrate our capacity with the VPAC facility. We expect that the high speed link will also let our CVF users have access to the I-Cubed visualization facility.
Anyone interested in using the facilities should contact:
Dirk van der Knijff, Manager, ARC x44897 dirk@unimelb.edu.au
Paul Edwards, Research Support Officer, x48884 paule@unimelb.edu.au
Bernard Meade, Visualization Officer x44139 bmeade@unimelb.edu.au
or visit the ARC web site:
<http://www.hpc.unimelb.edu.au/>High Performance Computing is a rapidly changing and evolving area. For the latest and most up-to-date information, you should always visit the ARC website.
The latest version of this document can be found at:
<http://www.hpc.unimelb.edu.au/marcc/itppg.html>