Supercomputers
eResearch SA maintains extensive supercomputing facilities, giving South Australian researchers from all institutions access to shared infrastructure.
The 3 supercomputers—Corvus, Aquila and Hydra—enable researchers to tackle some of the most demanding scientific and technical problems in fields such as:
- molecular biology, genomics and proteomics
- environmental science
- fluid dynamics
- water resource and environmental management
- mechanical and structural engineering
- physical oceanography
- physics
- computational chemistry
- materials science
These computers can be used for complex data processing and analysis jobs that standard desktop computers would find it difficult or impossible to perform, and enable users to run many processing jobs with different parameters or input files more quickly.
Researchers from diverse fields use eResearch SA's supercomputing resources to analyse vast genomic databases, study the interactions of complex molecular structures, model the interactions of fundamental particles in the nucleus, and run complicated statistical queries.
Since the supercomputers are shared resources with many users, access is controlled by a queueing system. To have a job processed by one of the supercomputers, you need to submit it to the processing queue using a batch file that specifies the program you want to run. eResearch SA can show you how to produce this file and talk with you about which supercomputer is best suited to your processing needs.
To find out more about eResearch SA's supercomputers and to learn how to submit a job, talk to the eResearch SA Helpdesk. You may also be interested in accessing the national grid—a shared network of distributed supercomputing resources—available for use by national research collaborations.
