Computer science

Researchers in the Distributed and High Performance Computing (DHPC) group work closely with eResearch SA in the procurement, installation, benchmarking and testing of supercomputing facilities. The DHPC group also uses eResearch SA facilities for research projects in parallel and grid computing.

Recent work has developed improved tools that allow highly accurate measurements of the communications performance of parallel computers. This has many applications, including the testing and optimisation of communications networks, protocols and algorithms. Results from these tools are also used in related work that has developed more accurate techniques for modelling and analysing the performance of parallel programs.

The DHPC group has been working on grid computing for several years. This research addresses the problem of effectively utilising multiple distributed computing resources for complex applications, particularly those involving the access and processing of data from large distributed data archives, such as image data from satellites or aerial surveys.