HPC Servers

These machines are located at UQ and consist of:

• 2x SGI Altix 3700 (1x 16 processor) computers (gust)
• 1x SGI Altix 3700BX2 64 processor computer (cyclone)

These machines have peak performance ratings of 384 and 96 GFLOPS respectively. QCIF has chosen these machines for their high throughput and shared memory capacities.

In addition to the central QCIF facility at UQ the various QCIF partners have extensive HPC resources. QCIF is working towards the integration and virtualisation of these resources and the development of user portal and remote access facilities.

Storage

SGI CXFS SAN (Storage Area Network)

QCIF facilitates access to this mass storage system through a StorageTek tape robot (populated with 300 TeraByte but with 1PB capacity) controlled via SGI-DMF Hierarchical Storage Management system software.

Collaboration and Grid Computing

QCIF is moving to develop infrastructure and resources to support a move to grid computing infrastructure. Because of the geographic spread of Queensland, collaboration between the QCIF partners is a complex issue. QCIF has moved to overcome these difficulties by supporting the establishment of access grids at each of the partner University locations. Access Grid nodes are in operation at UQ, JCU, Griffith, USQ, CQU and QUT.

QCIF, in partnership with ARCS, has contributed to the development of VisLab; an Access Grid development lab. The VisLab AG comprises:

• 3 JVC D-ILA projectors (1280 x 1024 pixels): total projected area: 3840 x 1024 pixels
• internet ports for laptops
• adjustable lighting
• high-speed connection

VisLab provides access to a rich IT and user interface development lab. It has a number of tiled computer displays with its Linux-based Access Grid available for development.