NeSI Newsletter - September 2012 | New Zealand eScience Infrastructure

Dear colleagues,

As many of you will have heard last week, we're well underway with establishing NZ's eScience and High Performance Computing infrastructure for researchers. Now that we have a good email database, I intend to send a monthly email update so you can stay up to date with developments and activities across NeSI.

With the deadline looming tomorrow, I'll draw your attention in particular to our currently open Call for HPC proposals, and in particular a new opportunity to work more closely with our team of scientific applications experts. For those that are prepared to cover the 20% of costs for a Research proposal, you can request support from our team to directly contribute to the development of your HPC codes. We do only have a limited amount of time which we can allocate to collaborate with you on your projects, so we're looking to join you in your work, and be as focused as we can on the value we can provide as experts in high performance computing applications. We're trialling this approach for this and the next Call for HPC proposals, and then will review it's success early in 2013. More details are below, and remember that submitting a proposal for HPC access, including collaboration with our Experts, doesn't take much time, and opens up new collaborations and possibilities for your research.

If there is anything that you'd like to know more about, we're always happy to chat so do get in touch.

Nick Jones
Director

Requesting Expert assistance on your HPC project

We want to grow strong working relations with HPC user communities across the country, and have highly skilled experts on our team. As part of the Research Allocation Class, researchers are invited to request the support of our scientific applications Experts to help enhance the performance of software running on our HPC facilities. Our Experts are keen and able to collaborate with you over the life of an approved project to improve the operation of your HPC codes. If you have any questions, ask us via our contact form or attend the office hour if they relate to the current Call for HPC proposals (see below).

HPC proposals - September Call closes Friday 21st September (tomorrow)!

The current call for access to our HPC facilities closes this Friday (21 September). We are excited to see some new applicants have already sent in applications. If you are considering submitting an application, please review our Access Policy, which contains important and useful information.

We host a video conference for researchers before the end of each call for HPC proposals, to allow you to resolve any last-minute questions. It is an informal chat attended by researchers from all over the country, and an easy opportunity to work through any concerns you might have before finalising your proposal.

This HPC proposals September Call meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at Friday 21 September, 10-11am. The meeting uses REANNZ Video Conferencing, with meeting ID 6970. Please join us by visiting http://sds.karen.net.nz/scopia?ID=6970&autojoin.

NeSI HPC Roadshow

Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s national HPC roadshow. Almost 200 researchers attended one of the five days across the country. It was a long yet rewarding week for the team, with the afternoons in particular providing valuable time for direct discussions. If you missed a talk or want to refer back to the details, our presentations are available. If you have any questions, do ask us via our contact form.

Summer of eResearch

Student applications for Summer of eResearch 2012 scholarships close this Friday. Please let any capable students know that they have an opportunity to work full time with a research group over the coming summer.

Open Science Category - New Zealand Open Source Awards

NeSI is sponsoring the Open Science category of the New Zealand Open Science Awards. This is an opportunity for the community to celebrate the use of free and open source software in science. If you know of a project that benefits from, or contributes to open source software, please do nominate it and let them know they should sing their own praises. Nominations close 3rd October 2012.

Feedback

If you're unsure about any aspect of our developments or activities, you are welcome to ask us via our contact form.