Applications open for 2018 access to Pawsey Supercomputers

Calls are now open for supercomputing time on Magnus at the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in 2018. If you are interested in using supercomputing resources for your research between January and December in 2018, please consider applying.

The 2018 Merit Allocation calls are for the following schemes:

  • National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (NCMAS) – This scheme supports computational research in all science disciplines across Australia. There are 100 million core hours available on Magnus for this call. NCMAS also provides access to NCI and other resources. Open 1/9/2017 to 20/10/2017.
  • Energy and Resources Merit Allocation Scheme – supports Energy and Resources-focused research projects from across Australia. Energy examples include generation, storage and distribution. Resources examples include exploration, minerals extraction and processing, groundwater, and waste management. There are 55.5 million core hours available on Magnus for this call. Open 4/9/2017 to 20/10/2017.
  • Pawsey Partner Merit Allocation Scheme – supports the whole range of computational research in Pawsey Partner institutions. Partner institutions are CSIRO, Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University and The University of Western Australia. Western Australian Government researchers are also eligible for the Partner Scheme. There are 110 million core hours available on Magnus for this call. Open 4/9/2017 to 20/10/2017.

Pawsey’s petascale supercomputer, Magnus, is available for allocations through the current call. Magnus supports capability-scale computational-research. It is a Cray XC40 system, with 1,488 compute nodes (35,712 cores) using Intel Xeon ‘Haswell’ CPUs, linked by the Cray Aries interconnect.

As a guide, we anticipate requests to be in the order of 1-10 million core hours, although smaller (and larger) requests will be considered. Applicants should confirm their software can run effectively on Magnus, and provide detailed justification/benchmarks of how they have estimated their compute-time requirements.

We encourage experienced research groups from the Pawsey partners to apply for the NCMAS and the Energy and Resources Schemes to maximise their opportunities. If unsuccessful or partially successful for Pawsey resources their applications will be re-evaluated in the Pawsey Partner scheme.

There are no significant changes for the 2018 merit calls, although some minor changes to NCMAS.

Pawsey is offering a technical pre-submission check for proposals. Upon request, Pawsey supercomputing staff will check an application, highlighting any potential omissions or errors they identify, plus suggesting changes that may improve the technical assessment for the proposal. For NCMAS applications this must occur via email rather than by Pawsey staff accessing the form.

Project leaders should email a request to help@pawsey.org.au in advance of 8/10/2017.

For assistance with your application or for any other enquiries, please contact the Pawsey Helpdesk at help@pawsey.org.au.