ARCCA @ Cardiff Uni
Hi people,
I went to a showcase today for the Department of Physics in which they were demonstrating the capabilities of various pieces of equipment around the campus. Of possoble interest was the Merlin/ Condor Computer systems. Basically, Cardiff has one of the most powerful super computer’s in the UK and it is available to use should anyone be interested enough (they should probably promote it a little more). The slight catch seems to be that it is currently using the Linux operating system and the input for the systems is predominantly code. The programs that they have already at their disposal are mostly open-sourced due to licensing restrictions of the research facility. On the plus side there are people there to help, who’re very keen to incorporate research from other schools into the system. Additionally, within the next year they’re hoping to partition both the Windows and Apple Operating Systems on the Super Computer(Merlin). Condor uses the latent processing power of any idle machines on the campus. Look at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/arcca/ for more details…
Food for thought.
I sit on the oversight committee for ARCCA and indeed it is quite an impressive set up. However, while they will initially help you if you have a specific research project in mind, ARCCA is looking to monetize their investment. It is not ‘free’ Running the computers is a huge cost and they are looking to get a return on their investment from research grants that include a payment to ARCCA to use their facilities. That said, I am sure they would be willing to do a small showcase experiment for any department in the Humanities because they do not use the facilities at all.