[ASA] Design Survey for the Next Swinburne Supercomputer (g2/gSTAR) - Your Input Required

[Jarrod Hurley]

Dear ASA Member, 

We would appreciate your input into the design of the next Swinburne supercomputer 
by completing the following survey regarding your high performance computing (HPC) 
usage/needs:

https://ahassan.typeform.com/to/WIcDLG

In particular we would like input from current users of the facility and those who think they 
may have a need to use such a facility in the future. We estimate that the survey will take 
no more than 5 minutes to complete. It will remain open until 5pm Friday May 6th. 

The current Swinburne supercomputer (g2) is a hybrid of conventional central processing 
unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) technology. It incorporates the GPU Supercomputer 
for Theoretical Astrophysics Research (gSTAR) and operates as a national facility for the 
astronomy community. In reality the facility is neither a GPU-only machine or restricted only to 
theoretical work. With over 300 astronomy account holders it aims to provide astronomers 
nationally with dedicated HPC resources regardless of whether they use 
GPUs or CPUs for their computation and regardless of their field/type of research 
(e.g. usage includes telescope data processing as well as simulations). 

Installed in 2011 the current storage and compute node hardware is due for replacement 
in the near future and as such we have started the preliminary design and information 
gathering process. We envisage the facility continuing as an easy-to-access mid-level 
supercomputer comprised of a mix of CPUs and accelerators. 
Your input as part of informing this process is important.

Best regards,
Jarrod Hurley